Quake 3 - Id breaks their promises again...
Grue
It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
Why doesn't is surprise me that after they talk about how their
wonderful LOD technology with their curves will alow the engine to run
on low end systems just as well as Quake 2, they turn around, pull
this bullshit, and instead, they give us shitty "Vertex Lighting" so
that "slow cards" (which I assume includes the Voodoo) won't have to
do multipass lighting.
So basically, if your current system runs Quake 2, but just barely,
you're not going to get the same rendering quality for Quake 3,
you'll get far worse quality.
I wonder if this has something to do with Epic stealing id's idea for
a multiplayer only tournament type game, and id's trying to rush their
game out the door first. Maybe id is scared. Maybe that's why they
decided to do a multiplayer only game in the first place. They were
araid they weren't going to be competitive. They did say that they
couldn't do both high end technology and great content, didn't they?
bruce rennie
>
> It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
> it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
> mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
> and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
> models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
> do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
>
See, this is why developers should just keep they're mouths shut
and develop. Talking about technology and features before the final
feature list is frozen is just asking for trouble.
As if they actually needed to generate more hype about Q3.
> Why doesn't is surprise me that after they talk about how their
> wonderful LOD technology with their curves will alow the engine to run
> on low end systems just as well as Quake 2, they turn around, pull
> this bullshit, and instead, they give us shitty "Vertex Lighting" so
> that "slow cards" (which I assume includes the Voodoo) won't have to
> do multipass lighting.
Much as I believe in consumer rights, I don't understand your beef.
This is a compromise that id is hoping keeps the most people happy.
Obviously, you're not one of them. I'm sure id is sorry about
that (really).
>
> So basically, if your current system runs Quake 2, but just barely,
> you're not going to get the same rendering quality for Quake 3,
> you'll get far worse quality.
Did people really expect otherwise? If your system barely runs Q2,
did you really expect to get the most out of Q3?
>
> I wonder if this has something to do with Epic stealing id's idea for
> a multiplayer only tournament type game, and id's trying to rush their
> game out the door first. Maybe id is scared. Maybe that's why they
> decided to do a multiplayer only game in the first place. They were
> araid they weren't going to be competitive. They did say that they
> couldn't do both high end technology and great content, didn't they?
I'm sure id wants to get Q3 out before Unreal tournament releases.
Why wouldn't they?
I actually commend id for admitting that they couldn't do high end
technology
and great content. They're the first honest people in the FPS market.
Please name ONE FPS game that had great high end technology and
great content. The only contender for technology, Unreal, had poor
networking implementation and boring gameplay. Most of the others are
based on Q2 engines. The truth is, you can't push the boundaries of
technology and hope to develop a high content single player FPS at the
same time. It is to YOUR benefit that id has recognized this.
/bruce
--
/*======================================================================*/
/* You'd be cranky too if you woke up and found yourself at work.
*/
/*
*/
/* Bruce Rennie Q: Are We Not Men ?
*/
/*======================================================================*/
Freon
The regular stuff is still there for people with real systems :).
Guess you misunderstood the part that said:
"it's not exactly attractive. It's not horrible -- Jedi Knight and Descent
both used vertex lighting -- but it's not very competitive in terms of image
quality with, say, Quake3's native rendering method"
Then you seemed to have completely missed this part;
"The current angle of attack is that on Permedia2 we'll automatically
turn on vertex lighting. For Rage Pro and Rendition V2200 we'll
probably recommend it. All users will have the option of going for
the "fast and ugly" path, and I'm sure you hardcore players out there
will do just that so you can hit your 390fps on a TNT at 320x240 with
no lightmaps. :-)"
There was never going to be LOD on the world.. And it's course on the models
because that is all they require. Higher LOD would be required for games
with low color depth. Quake3 uses 24bit textures.
I suggest you make sure you understand what you read before spouting off
inaccuracies.. Also post the link for people to read it themselves.
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=7&time=19990224232842
--
Freon
m | b at mocc com
remove the | put in a @ and . and close the spaces. :)
Grue <gr...@zork.net> wrote in message
news:36d5659d...@news.earthlink.net...
>
>It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
>it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
>mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
>and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
>models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
>do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
>
>Why doesn't is surprise me that after they talk about how their
>wonderful LOD technology with their curves will alow the engine to run
>on low end systems just as well as Quake 2, they turn around, pull
>this bullshit, and instead, they give us shitty "Vertex Lighting" so
>that "slow cards" (which I assume includes the Voodoo) won't have to
>do multipass lighting.
>
>So basically, if your current system runs Quake 2, but just barely,
>you're not going to get the same rendering quality for Quake 3,
>you'll get far worse quality.
>
Shrike
>
> It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
> it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
> mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
> and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
> models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
> do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
What in the fucking hell are you talking about? The world was never
meant to have LOD, and the curves have fuck all to do with it. The
TRIBES world, for example, has LOD, and you can actually see it
tessellate in real-time (cool, but weird). id NEVER mentioned
world-LOD.
Of course, curved surfaces have their own LOD sort of built-in, but
you would have to make the entire fucking level out of curves to
notice. If you have an arch over two square columns, the arch will
LOD, and the columns won't. Curves are just eye-candy.
> Why doesn't is surprise me that after they talk about how their
> wonderful LOD technology with their curves will alow the engine to run
> on low end systems just as well as Quake 2, they turn around, pull
> this bullshit, and instead, they give us shitty "Vertex Lighting" so
> that "slow cards" (which I assume includes the Voodoo) won't have to
> do multipass lighting.
Why do you start mouthing off before you even finished reading the
plan update? They talked of a "Near Quake2 quality" fallback mode for
slower systems some time ago, true, and now they came up with a way to
run the game in cards that couldn't handle Quake2 worth shit anyway.
There is only ONE card that will require vertex lighting, but it will
be available for *everybody* if you want a dramatic speed increase.
Again, the curves are eye-candy, they were never meant to increase
performance.
> So basically, if your current system runs Quake 2, but just barely,
> you're not going to get the same rendering quality for Quake 3,
> you'll get far worse quality.
What do you expect if your machine can "barely" run Quake2, a fucking
miracle? Maybe JC should swing around your house in his Ferrari and
donate a new SGI Visual Workstation for you to run Quake3 on it.
> I wonder if this has something to do with Epic stealing id's idea for
> a multiplayer only tournament type game, and id's trying to rush their
> game out the door first. Maybe id is scared. Maybe that's why they
> decided to do a multiplayer only game in the first place. They were
> araid they weren't going to be competitive. They did say that they
> couldn't do both high end technology and great content, didn't they?
Epic stole id's idea for a multiplayer game for the same reason they
stole id's idea for a single player game, because they were GOOD
ideas. Period. If Unreal Tournament is (against all odds) a great
game, then we're all so much the better off.
I just don't understand what the big deal is. You have seen the
movies... The curves are in, and they look amazing. The mirrors are
in, the portals are in. It has been seen running like a bastard on
Macs and Pentiums long before they came up with the vertex lighting
model, and the demo will be out next month. If you have a P133 and
were hoping for the game to look like Unreal and run like Doom, you
are in for a big dissapointment, but I wouldn't blame it on id.
--
Shrike -IRIX worshipper, Linux dabbler, Windows victim-
`I need Stalin like I need a hole in the head' -Leon Trotsky
Rygar1
<bruce....@numetrix.com> wrote:
>> So basically, if your current system runs Quake 2, but just barely,
>> you're not going to get the same rendering quality for Quake 3,
>> you'll get far worse quality.
>
>Did people really expect otherwise? If your system barely runs Q2,
>did you really expect to get the most out of Q3?
One guy argued with me not to long ago about that very same thing,
believe it or not. His claim was that id said you wouldn't need much
higher system requirements. I laughed :)
joelm...@geocities.com
"Freon" <S...@signature.com> wrote:
> It's not horrible -- Jedi Knight and Descent
> both used vertex lighting -- but it's not very competitive in terms of image
> quality with, say, Quake3's native rendering method"
OTOH, vertex lighting is much more memory efficient (and thus faster as
you explained) and allows you to do huge areas like you have in Jedi Knight.
Just try to do that huge tower stage in the Quake engine and it will choke
and sputter on the best systems. It's a trade off, you want complicated
lighting and shadowing effects, or do you want huge areas? It all depends
on what kind of game you're making.
Joel Mathis
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Brett Jaffee
>Grue wrote:
>>
>> It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
>> it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
>> mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
>> and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
>> models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
>> do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
>
>What in the fucking hell are you talking about? The world was never
>meant to have LOD, and the curves have fuck all to do with it. The
>TRIBES world, for example, has LOD, and you can actually see it
>tessellate in real-time (cool, but weird). id NEVER mentioned
>world-LOD.
I have to agree with this. My recollection is that Carmack mentioned quite a
while ago that full world LOD was not going to be in Arena. This idea was
thrown out when it was he decided that Arena would not concentrate on huge-ass
levels as Trinity might have. I've seen LOD still mentioned in most of the
Q3A FAQs, but I don't think that info is up to date.
__________________________________________________________________________
Brett Jaffee
Brett's Slope and Power Home Page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~jaffee
The Unoffical Extra 300 Home Page:
http://www.bayarea.net/~nathan/extra300/
REMOVE THE "X" FROM MY EMAIL ADDRESS BEFORE REPLYING!
__________________________________________________________________________
Grue
>Grue wrote:
>>
>> It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
>> it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
>> mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
>> and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
>> models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
>> do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
>
>What in the fucking hell are you talking about? The world was never
>meant to have LOD, and the curves have fuck all to do with it. The
>TRIBES world, for example, has LOD, and you can actually see it
>tessellate in real-time (cool, but weird). id NEVER mentioned
>world-LOD.
Yes they did. I can't tell you where, because I've forgotten, but I
clearly remember reading Carmack say something along the lines of:
"...we use an edge based architecture not a polygon based
archtecture..."
and
"...collision detection should never be done with the rendered
information, it should be done with the world database."
Now, those aren't the exact thing she said, but let me explain them...
In both he was responding to someone's questions about the game
archtitecture.
In the first one, he's talking about how when you're doing LOD, you
use say, the ends of the cylynder, not the middle. Someone asked him
how he solves the problem of one end of a cylynder having eight sides,
and the other having six, and if the cylynder would be split in the
middle and not match up. He refuted that and gave an explantation
similar to the above. He was CLEARLY talking about the world LOD.
In the second, he was again talking about the world LOD. Now the
question was what happens when a player on a slow computer fires, and
the shot goes through a section which would be filled in on a faster
players computer because they can render more polygons. A cylynder
for example, could be square on one person's computer, and round on
the other. So the round cylynder guy could have more cylynder to
block shots.
This was again clearly talking about the world LOD.
If I can ever find out where this is from I'll be happy to quote the
exact things. Anyone reading this want to help out? I know SOMEONE
must have read this. It could be an IRC log. I think Carmack went on
IRC exactly once. It could be a plan file, but I tried searching his
plan files and couldn't turn up anything. Most likely, it was an
interview of some sort.
>Of course, curved surfaces have their own LOD sort of built-in, but
>you would have to make the entire fucking level out of curves to
>notice. If you have an arch over two square columns, the arch will
>LOD, and the columns won't. Curves are just eye-candy.
But that's not what Brian Hooks plan says. It indicates NO world LOD.
And the curves are the only thing it would be applicable to of course!
But look at those screenshots. Look at how smooth those curves are.
That's one hell of a lot of extra polygons for some curves, and those
could almost all be culled to make it work much faster on a low end
system.
Have you see their screenshots anyhow? They have frigging curves all
over the place!
>Why do you start mouthing off before you even finished reading the
>plan update? They talked of a "Near Quake2 quality" fallback mode for
>slower systems some time ago, true, and now they came up with a way to
>run the game in cards that couldn't handle Quake2 worth shit anyway.
>There is only ONE card that will require vertex lighting, but it will
>be available for *everybody* if you want a dramatic speed increase.
They basically said you'd need it for Voodoo cards. And it is not
"near quake 2 quality" if it's vertex lighting. Have you even seen
Jedi Knight?
>Again, the curves are eye-candy, they were never meant to increase
>performance.
I didn't say they were going to increase performance. LOD is supposed
to lower the number of polygons on low end systems used to create the
curves. But if they don't have world LOD, then they will have tons of
extra polygons on the curves.
Just what makes this rendering engine so wonderful and such an advance
if it doesn't have any real LOD? Some simple specular highlights on
metal? A little fogging, which they already did to some extent in
Unreal?
If they're going to push multiplayer only off on us, I expect some
advanced technology here. And if they tell me that they're gonna
implement LOD, then they should do it, not drop it all of a sudden
because Unreal Tournament is right on their ass. It doesn't piss me
of that much that it won't run on my system... it pisses me of that
they told me "don't worry it'll run on your system" and then turned
around and fucked me. Kinda like Ion Storm's doing with Daikatana.
How much you wanna bet that that game isn't gonna live up to the hype?
I'm tried of these rock-star developers shooting their mouths up and
then not backing up what they say.
>What do you expect if your machine can "barely" run Quake2, a fucking
>miracle? Maybe JC should swing around your house in his Ferrari and
>donate a new SGI Visual Workstation for you to run Quake3 on it.
No, I expect that it should "barely" run Quake 3, because they said
if you could run Quake 2, then you will be able to run Quake 3.
>Epic stole id's idea for a multiplayer game for the same reason they
>stole id's idea for a single player game, because they were GOOD
>ideas. Period. If Unreal Tournament is (against all odds) a great
>game, then we're all so much the better off.
It's a little diffrent. Id didn't even get their game out when epic
decided to steal it. I'm sure Carmack regrets having leaked the word
out so early. But he probably also had no choice because there would
just be even more people pissed off that it was only multiplayer if
they were notified at the 11th hour.
>I just don't understand what the big deal is. You have seen the
>movies... The curves are in, and they look amazing.
Sure, on a P450 or something, with Voodoo 2. Lotta good that'll do me
with my 166 and Voodoo 1. Heck, if the thing would run okay on a 400
with Voodoo 1, I might not get so mad at them. But if I have to
upgrade my 3d card for a THIRD time in 2 years, I'll be pretty pissed.
>The mirrors are in, the portals are in.
Whoopie.
Tell me.. why are they bothing with all this extra shit? This is
deathmatch people. Didn't Romero say "Framerate is god"? Maybe it
was one of the guys rom 3d Realms. Either way, all these extra
effects are pretty fucking worhtless if I can't run the game.
Wouldn't deathmatch be better served by a less "eye-candy" opriented
engine that runs like a bastard, and if they focused on the gameplay
instead? Deathmatch has be no means been perfected yet. Every game
has screwed it up in some way or the other. Doom didn't have enough
options... Half Life has maps which require far higher than the system
requirements on the box indicate, and the weapons are poorly balanced,
and the lag is terrible. Quake 2 could probably have used some
tweaking with the weapons and a few other things.
>model, and the demo will be out next month. If you have a P133 and
>were hoping for the game to look like Unreal and run like Doom, you
>are in for a big dissapointment, but I wouldn't blame it on id.
No, I have a P166, and was expecting the game to look like Quake 2 on
my system, (and look better than Unreal on good systems) and run like
Unreal. Was that too much to expect? Because that's the indications
they've been giving before now.
Ghost
Grue wrote:
> It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
> it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
> mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
> and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
> models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
> do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
The game does feature LOD, but not real-time LOD. The "curved surfaces"
are described as curves in the level file, and when the level loads into
memory the curves are converted into polygons *based on what you have your
current detail level set at*. So, to change LOD you reload the level.
Not realtime, but this does allow slow machines to play the game (with no
curves basically), and fast machines to have highly tesselated curves.
The collision detection is probably based on a medium level of detail for
tesselation, so it remains the same on every machine it is run on.
The logical result of this is that Q3A is not really doing anything that
alot of other engines aren't doing (at runtime). Its just that their
editor/loader can tesselate curves. You could probably do the same thing
with Unreal by making a pipe with alot of polygons. Of course you won't
be able to change its LOD when the level loads, but at least you could say
"Look ma, a curved surface! This is why our engine is better...etc."
So, in my mind, they didn't break any promises because they never said
"realtime LOD".
Gunslingr3
my 166 and Voodoo 1. Heck, if the thing would run okay on a 400 with Voodoo 1,
I might not get so mad at them. But if I have to upgrade my 3d card for a
THIRD time in 2 years, I'll be pretty pissed.<<
Geez, I got my P150 3 years ago and it certainly wasn't top of the line
then. How long do you expect a gaming machine to last? More effects generally
take more computer, why can't some people understand this?
If you have to upgrade your 3d card for a "THIRD time in 2 years" you
bought the wrong video card in the first place. Don't blame id.
>>Tell me.. why are they bothing with all this extra shit? This is deathmatch
people. Didn't Romero say "Framerate is god"? Maybe it
was one of the guys rom 3d Realms. Either way, all these extra effects are
pretty fucking worhtless if I can't run the game.<<
Why the Luddite attitude? Should we regress back to RGB in search of
higher frame rate? Unreal didn't cause drool because of its frame rate.
The effects are only worthless if you have a worthless gaming machine.
Time marches on, don't be afraid.
>> Quake 2 could probably have used some tweaking with the weapons and a few
other things.<<
There are a lot of mods out. If you can't find one to suit you perhaps you
could make one.
Gunslinger
Grue
>>>Sure, on a P450 or something, with Voodoo 2. Lotta good that'll do me with
>my 166 and Voodoo 1. Heck, if the thing would run okay on a 400 with Voodoo 1,
>I might not get so mad at them. But if I have to upgrade my 3d card for a
>THIRD time in 2 years, I'll be pretty pissed.<<
>
>then. How long do you expect a gaming machine to last? More effects generally
>take more computer, why can't some people understand this?
> If you have to upgrade your 3d card for a "THIRD time in 2 years" you
>bought the wrong video card in the first place. Don't blame id.
You're right, I did buy the wrong video card the first time. But how
was I to know the bastards blatantly LIED on the box when they said it
was a 3D accelerator?
By the time I'd waited for newer games to support the card, it was too
late to return the damn thing.
Still, I only bought my Voodoo two years ago, and only a year ago I
upgraded to a 166.
I don't see why these companies STILL feel the need to push the
hardware so much. Don't they realise that it's getting to the point
of diminishing returns? The MAJORITY of people who buy games aren't
hardcore gamers who'll uograde every six months. People have
realtively fast computers now because everyone's been buying them to
get on the "information superhighway". But most homes have a PC now,
and like a TV, they aren't going to buy a new one every year. So if
companies start pusing their game requirements past what's currently
the average system, then they're gonna start selling a lot less games
because a lot fewer people will have the systems powerful enough to
run them.
And the processor thing isn't the real thing that's bugging me. It's
the 3d card thing. Are we now going to be exapected to upgrade our 3D
card every year in ADDITION to our CPU? Is it now going to cost $700
or so every year to upgrade our PC's to run the lastest games instead
of only about $500?
Halff life runs prettyy good on my system. And it looks pretty good
too. The difrence between half-life's visuals, and Quake 3's visuals
sin't nearly the same as the difrence between Quake's visuals and Duke
Nukem's. Do we really need these extra visuals RIGHT NOW? Unreal
looks pretty damn nice, and it runs on my system. I wouldn't be too
upset if they used Unreal-level technology for another year or so, it
looks great. And Id could do an engine that does just as good of
visuals but runs twice as fast on my system... so why are they
wasting their time making the visuals nicer? Shouldn't they be more
worried about the framerate in deathmatch than spline curves?
> Why the Luddite attitude? Should we regress back to RGB in search of
>higher frame rate?
Uh... that didn't make any sense. What the hell do you mean by RGB?
Regress back to 24bit color?
>Unreal didn't cause drool because of its frame rate.
Nope... but the drool dried up after we played it and the gameplay
sucked and the framerate needed some work. Do you think people are
gonna drool over Quake 3 if it doesn't run well on their systems?
> The effects are only worthless if you have a worthless gaming machine.
>Time marches on, don't be afraid.
My machine is hardly worthless. It'll be good to run almost every
game that comes out besides top of the line 3D games for another year
or two. It'll run Duke Forever, Messiah, and any lucasarts graphic
adventure that comes out in the next year. Hardly worthless.
> There are a lot of mods out. If you can't find one to suit you perhaps you
>could make one.
Well I would, but only if I could sell it, and Quake 2 isn't viable to
make addons for anymore.
Grue
>
>
>Grue wrote:
>
>> It's funny... I was just reading a plan update by Brian Hook... and in
>> it is talks about vertex lighting... but more interestingly, it
>> mentions that Quake 3 will only have level of detail on the models,
>> and then only coarse LOD, (which means they just make 3 diffrent
>> models or something and swap them... a method _any_ game company could
>> do) and that the world won't feature any LOD at all!
>
>The game does feature LOD, but not real-time LOD. The "curved surfaces"
>are described as curves in the level file, and when the level loads into
>memory the curves are converted into polygons *based on what you have your
>current detail level set at*. So, to change LOD you reload the level.
>Not realtime, but this does allow slow machines to play the game (with no
>curves basically), and fast machines to have highly tesselated curves.
If this is true, then it sound acceptable. Though I'd have expected
more from Mr. Carmack. Other companies have released games with
realtime LOD, (flight sims) and Shiny's gonna be releasing Messiah
soon, and it will eature realtime LOD. I thought Mr. Carmack was at
the top of the optimization pile, but I guess he's being pushed off.
>The collision detection is probably based on a medium level of detail for
>tesselation, so it remains the same on every machine it is run on.
Sounds about right.
>The logical result of this is that Q3A is not really doing anything that
>alot of other engines aren't doing (at runtime). Its just that their
>editor/loader can tesselate curves. You could probably do the same thing
>with Unreal by making a pipe with alot of polygons. Of course you won't
>be able to change its LOD when the level loads, but at least you could say
>"Look ma, a curved surface! This is why our engine is better...etc."
>So, in my mind, they didn't break any promises because they never said
>"realtime LOD".
And president Clinton said he didn't have "sexual relations" with
Monica Lewinski.
But seriously, I don't know that they didn't say that... I'd have to
be able to read that thing I read again, and I don't know where I read
it.
JSpectre07
>hardware so much.
For the same reason that the cotton gin and the digital watch were such big
hits. Technological progress RULES.
> The MAJORITY of people who buy games aren't
>hardcore gamers who'll uograde every six months.
I have long clung to the belief that John Carmack et.al. don't care at all
about those who buy Compaqs and Gateways and instead care about the hard-core
bad-ass FPS gamers who put them on top in the first place. And it is precisely
this attitude that makes me an id supporter. Don't worry about that dumbass who
bought his computer so he could "send an e-mail... across the internet!"
Johnny! I want BEAUTY! And SPEED! And GIB! And do something about that sticky
wall while you're at it.
>And the processor thing isn't the real thing that's bugging me. It's
>the 3d card thing. Are we now going to be exapected to upgrade our 3D
>card every year in ADDITION to our CPU? Is it now going to cost $700
>or so every year to upgrade our PC's to run the lastest games instead
>of only about $500?
There are people in America who spend thousands of dollars a year on CIGARS in
the misguided belief that it's a "hobby". Stupid fuckers. $700 a year is
AMAZINGLY cheap for a hobby. Ask a reef aquarist, or a car buff. If I did a
dollar-per-hour analysis of the enjoyment I get out of my computer...
>Do we really need these extra visuals RIGHT NOW?
YES, goddammit. Sorry you don't have the system to run it, but I'll gleefully
plop down $100-200 more for a new, better 3d accelerator when Quake 3 hits
because I LOVE QUAKE. Do not expect to be able to play a state-of-the-art game
with a computer powered by a hamster running in a wheel.
> And Id could do an engine that does just as good of
>visuals but runs twice as fast on my system... so why are they
>wasting their time making the visuals nicer?
Carmen Electra vs. an ugly fast girl. Your system, hate to say it, is OLD. I
had a P-166 about a year ago, and even with my Voodoo2 I could tell that my
processor was severely affecting my framerate. Quick upgrade to a PII-300 and
that was solved. Do not expect anyone, anywhere, to be making an FPS game with
your system in mind from now on. Or mine, for that matter. Here comes another
upgrade... but rather than fret, I'll just think of all the beautiful things
that faster processor and accelerator will bring into my life... have another
rocket, commie dog!
>Do you think people are
>gonna drool over Quake 3 if it doesn't run well on their systems?
Anyone who buys Quake 3 without understanding that yes, this is brand new, and
yes, it takes some horsepower to make it purr, doesn't understand computer
games. I personally could care less what "people" think, I am _already_
drooling.
>My machine is hardly worthless. It'll be good to run almost every
>game that comes out besides top of the line 3D games for another year
>or two.
You have a 166 Pentium and you expect it to be good for another two years? I'm
afraid you're in for a disappointment.
id Software rules.
Pat
When I am king you will be first against the wall
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all.
Rygar1
Why do these same tired arguments keep coming up? Doesn't anyone
rationalize these arguments in terms of "the big picture", instead of
their own little lives? No offense, but it seems to me that everyone
that can't afford an upgrade blames the game developers. Sorry, it's
not their fault. Blame every other gamer out there who *is* forking
out the money for the latest hardware. (Guilty!)
On Sat, 27 Feb 1999 06:07:14 GMT, gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>I don't see why these companies STILL feel the need to push the
>hardware so much.
Read this group. When "antialiasing" is a household word among gamers,
it's because they *want* their hardware pushed. How many people said
they wouldn't buy a game that wasn't 3D accelerated right after the
Voodoo became popular? *Plenty*. (Although I'm sure they changed
their minds down the road)
> Don't they realise that it's getting to the point
>of diminishing returns?
Not for gamers. Well known fact - most games are purchased by people
that have purchased a new computer in the prior 6 months. Computer
games have always pushed the margin for computer performance, since
their inception. This is nothing new, and even applies to consoles.
How many people expect much more life out of their Sega Saturn now
that the Dreamcast is out? In a year or so, no one will be making
games for the Saturn anymore. Upgrade or make due with older games.
> The MAJORITY of people who buy games aren't
>hardcore gamers who'll uograde every six months.
... and they buy Deer Hunter, Barbie, and Hasbro games. "Hardcore"
gamers *are* the people buying the games that most of the developers
make.
> People have
>realtively fast computers now because everyone's been buying them to
>get on the "information superhighway". But most homes have a PC now,
>and like a TV, they aren't going to buy a new one every year. So if
>companies start pusing their game requirements past what's currently
>the average system, then they're gonna start selling a lot less games
>because a lot fewer people will have the systems powerful enough to
>run them.
Nope, because people who have a computer for games will upgrade. Those
that are just casual gamers couldn't care less, they would just find
older games in the bargain bins. No company cares about a household
that buys only a few games a year anyway - that's not their target
market. (It's the market for the games I mentioned above.) Besides,
most games are made for only around a P2-233 right now. Considering
that's not even *manufactured* anymore, they are way below the
"average" system.
>And the processor thing isn't the real thing that's bugging me. It's
>the 3d card thing. Are we now going to be exapected to upgrade our 3D
>card every year in ADDITION to our CPU? Is it now going to cost $700
>or so every year to upgrade our PC's to run the lastest games instead
>of only about $500?
People who buy the latest hardware do so expecting it to be utilized.
Game companies that fail to do so get criticized, and often have their
product overlooked. They can't afford *not* to support the latest
hardware - after all, their competitors probably will be. Many people
would pass over a non-3D enhanced football game (for example) when a
3D enhanced one is sitting right beside it on the shelf.
You have to realize how competitive the industry is. I've seen
reviewers criticize a game for no 3D acceleration *many* times. In
fact, I even read a review that criticized the game for "no dedicated
server system for online play". COME ON!!
>Halff life runs prettyy good on my system. And it looks pretty good
>too. The difrence between half-life's visuals, and Quake 3's visuals
>sin't nearly the same as the difrence between Quake's visuals and Duke
>Nukem's. Do we really need these extra visuals RIGHT NOW?
That is just utterly silly. "Movie X is a great movie, but movie Y
isn't that bad. Why watch X when it costs a dollar more to rent, we
can just watch Y over and over?" Would you still like a hand crank
on your car motor too? (The way my car has been lately, that might
not be a bad idea) :)
>Nope... but the drool dried up after we played it and the gameplay
>sucked and the framerate needed some work.
Framerate was fine for me :) Smooth as anything, and gorgeous.
>Do you think people are
>gonna drool over Quake 3 if it doesn't run well on their systems?
Nope, they'll just upgrade. You *know* they will. Heck, I'm sure most
Quake heads are saving up for it already. Nah, scratch that... most of
them probably already have a system that will handle Q3.
>My machine is hardly worthless. It'll be good to run almost every
>game that comes out besides top of the line 3D games for another year
>or two. It'll run Duke Forever, Messiah, and any lucasarts graphic
>adventure that comes out in the next year. Hardly worthless.
Did you say you had a P166? *That* will run Messiah??? I *severely*
doubt it, I don't care what the developers have said. There is also a
difference between "running" and "enjoying". In two years, anything
that isn't a game of the type I mentioned up above will have hardware
acceleration required. The 1 Ghz chip from Intel will probably be out
by then too. Your P166 would probably fail to run Turbo Tax 2000 by
that point.
I believe the lowest speed Intel processor currently manufactures is
the 300. (oops... not sure about the Celeron's though) That means
everyone buying a new system will have at least a P2-266 in it (or
so). So tell me, why should developers should worry their heads over
supporting people with a great deal less than that?
It doesn't just take a week or two to make a game. It takes on
average about a year and a half. When you design the game, you shoot
at a moving target as to where you *think* the hardware world will be
at the time. No one beginning to design a game at this very moment
will worry about supporting less than a 266, because in the year or
two it takes to be coded and published, a 350 (or higher) will be the
lowest CPU speed you can purchase brand new.
Additionally, if they aim too low and don't add in enough advanced
features, they will be *roasted* by the gaming community. Worse, their
competition *will* have those features, and will outsell them by the
truckload.
Sorry, time rolls on. Roll with it or get caught under the wheels. The
world doesn't care whether or not you can afford to upgrade.
Andreas
<snippage>
>I don't see why these companies STILL feel the need to push the
>hardware so much. Don't they realise that it's getting to the point
>of diminishing returns?
No it's not, people have been saying this very thing for years and
years. "What? A 486 suddenly is not good enough!?" This is especially
true when it comes to id's games, since they tend to push the hardware
a lot more. Remember the flamefest that erupted, when people realized
that Quake wasn't going to run (well) on anything less than a Pentium?
Despite that id "promised" that 486dx2-66 would "run just fine".
It's history repeating.
New games demand new hardware. And that ain't going to change for a
very long time. Even though there is now a large non-gamer market
being created which is aiming at lower end computers. (With games like
Riven, Deer Hunter and such)
Andreas.
--
"One man's freedom fighter, is another's terrorist"
Andreas
>If this is true, then it sound acceptable. Though I'd have expected
>more from Mr. Carmack. Other companies have released games with
>realtime LOD, (flight sims) and Shiny's gonna be releasing Messiah
>soon, and it will eature realtime LOD. I thought Mr. Carmack was at
>the top of the optimization pile, but I guess he's being pushed off.
I know that Messiah does real-time LOD on it's models (based on
distance and quality settings) but does it really do realtime LOD on
the world itself? I doubt that very much. From what i've seen, the
game is mostly indoors and doing LOD would only slow it down. Level of
Detail ain't some magic bullet, it's only suitable for certain types
of game worlds. Games that are largely outdoors (TRIBES for example)
can benefit immensely from LOD. However, if you would do realtime
world-LOD to a game like Quake2 (mostly indoors) it would probably be
much slower than otherwise.
LOD is very simple to implement in flightsim type games, because a
triangle height map is basically the simplest thing that you can
tessellate. A indoors FPS game is something entirely different.
Hundreds of polygons are meeting each other at different angles. Very
very different. However like Ghost pointed out, LOD might very well be
applied to curved surfaces. This seem pretty reasonable as
tessellation is actually required when converting the bezier surface
to a triangle mesh.
People need to understand that certain programming solutions are only
suitable for certain game engines. LOD is just another buzzword and
certainly isn't a universally usable method for speeding up any given
3d engine.
Grue
>Dude.. Vertex lighting is for people to enable if they have a slow system.
>The regular stuff is still there for people with real systems :).
>Guess you misunderstood the part that said:
>both used vertex lighting -- but it's not very competitive in terms of image
>quality with, say, Quake3's native rendering method"
I didn't miss that part, and they forgot to mention that it's also not
very competitive, with say, Quake 2.
Come on people... there's no reason they can't make a fully scaleable
game in this day and age. Systems are fast enough to support it. Let
the game automatically scale back to Quake 2 level technology if
that's all my system can run. But don't give me only the option of
either kick ass looking visuals, or Jedi Knight.
>There was never going to be LOD on the world.
Yes there was. I read it somewhere. And someone else said that they
heard it would be done when the level loads.
>And it's course on the models
>because that is all they require. Higher LOD would be required for games
>with low color depth. Quake3 uses 24bit textures.
You're making no sense, and it's not because I don't understand the
terms... I'm a programmer.
Grue
>I have long clung to the belief that John Carmack et.al. don't care at all
>about those who buy Compaqs and Gateways and instead care about the hard-core
>bad-ass FPS gamers who put them on top in the first place. And it is precisely
>this attitude that makes me an id supporter. Don't worry about that dumbass who
>bought his computer so he could "send an e-mail... across the internet!"
>Johnny! I want BEAUTY! And SPEED! And GIB! And do something about that sticky
>wall while you're at it.
They may not care about THEM, but they DO care about their MONEY.
>>And the processor thing isn't the real thing that's bugging me. It's
>>the 3d card thing. Are we now going to be exapected to upgrade our 3D
>>card every year in ADDITION to our CPU? Is it now going to cost $700
>>or so every year to upgrade our PC's to run the lastest games instead
>>of only about $500?
>
>There are people in America who spend thousands of dollars a year on CIGARS in
>the misguided belief that it's a "hobby". Stupid fuckers. $700 a year is
>AMAZINGLY cheap for a hobby. Ask a reef aquarist, or a car buff. If I did a
>dollar-per-hour analysis of the enjoyment I get out of my computer...
Every $700 I spend on upgrades is another $700 of my money Mr. Carmack
(and all the other comapnies that force me to upgrade every year)
doesn't get.
Do you KNOW how many games that is? That's about SIXTEEN games! I
could afford 16 more games a year if I didn't have to upgrade every
year?
Now, is it really a viable economic model for a company to force
people to upgrade all the time? I think not. They just reach fewer
consumers, and the consumers they do reach have less money to spend on
their hobbies.
And any idiot spending thousands of dollars on Cigars is probably
fairly well off. The average hardcore gamer probably isn't that well
off.
>Carmen Electra vs. an ugly fast girl. Your system, hate to say it, is OLD. I
>had a P-166 about a year ago, and even with my Voodoo2 I could tell that my
>processor was severely affecting my framerate.
Must have been severely affecting your head too, for you to waste your
money on upgrading to a Voodoo II when you were running a P166.
Do you happen to have a Porsche with a lawnmower engine in it too?
>Quick upgrade to a PII-300 and that was solved.
Quick upgrade?
Hm, lesse... need a new motherboard... new chip.... and now I need new
ram to go with that new chip... and now I need a new case, because I
don't have enough fans in my current one...
>You have a 166 Pentium and you expect it to be good for another two years? I'm
>afraid you're in for a disappointment.
Gee, do you know of some Lucasarts adventure coming out that will make
my system non-viable in that time?
Grue
>On Sat, 27 Feb 1999 06:12:32 GMT, gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>
>
>>If this is true, then it sound acceptable. Though I'd have expected
>>more from Mr. Carmack. Other companies have released games with
>>realtime LOD, (flight sims) and Shiny's gonna be releasing Messiah
>>soon, and it will eature realtime LOD. I thought Mr. Carmack was at
>>the top of the optimization pile, but I guess he's being pushed off.
>
>I know that Messiah does real-time LOD on it's models (based on
>distance and quality settings) but does it really do realtime LOD on
>the world itself?
I don't know. It was my understanding that it did.
>I doubt that very much. From what i've seen, the
>game is mostly indoors and doing LOD would only slow it down.
It woudl slow it down... if it were done poorly. Naturally if you
have a square room, you wouldn't want to LOD it. But if you had
something round, you would. I haven't seen enough of Messiah's level
design to comment on it.
Another way you can do LOD is say, on buildings. If you had a
building that was far away, you could just use a box. But when you
got close, it could have an inside. Maybe Messiah does this... they
mentioned a city once.
>Level of Detail ain't some magic bullet, it's only suitable for certain types
>of game worlds.
Hey, Mario 64 mananged to use LOD well. And Zelda 64 uses it a lot.
But that's besides the point. We're talking Quake 3 here, not
Messiah, or Quake 2... Quake _3_ is going to have a lot of curved
surfaces. So it would CLEARLY benefit from realtime LOD on those,
making thr surfaces less detailed when they are far away, even on very
fast systems.
Games that are largely outdoors (TRIBES for example)
>can benefit immensely from LOD. However, if you would do realtime
>world-LOD to a game like Quake2 (mostly indoors) it would probably be
>much slower than otherwise.
You wouldn't WANT to do realtime lod on Quake 2, because there isn't
anything to LOD. Everything is square, and you couldn't really use
any fewer polygons to represent it.
But maybe you could do it to some extent. Small ledges, etc on very
far away geometry wouldn't be very visible. But that's not the kind
of thing an algorithm can easily get rid of. That would have to be
done by the level designer. They managed LOD in some of the buildings
in Zelda, so even with that few polygons, LOD helps.
>very different. However like Ghost pointed out, LOD might very well be
>applied to curved surfaces. This seem pretty reasonable as
>tessellation is actually required when converting the bezier surface
>to a triangle mesh.
And they're using curved surfaces all over the place in Quake 3.
They're using them on walls, floors, ceilings, charactars, and even
for the volumetric lights, and maybe the fog.
A perfect environment for LOD.
>People need to understand that certain programming solutions are only
>suitable for certain game engines. LOD is just another buzzword and
>certainly isn't a universally usable method for speeding up any given
>3d engine.
You're just not seeing the big picture. You're looking at Quake 3
like the "world" is seprate from the curves. It is not. Why does
everyone say "well you could do it on the curves... but not the world"
They're PART of the world! Obviosuly, you can't LOD a CUBE. But
they'r eusing just as many curves as they are cubes in Quake 3 in the
world... Realtime world LOD clearly would help Quake 3 out.
Grue
>Read this group. When "antialiasing" is a household word among gamers,
>it's because they *want* their hardware pushed. How many people said
>they wouldn't buy a game that wasn't 3D accelerated right after the
>Voodoo became popular? *Plenty*. (Although I'm sure they changed
>their minds down the road)
Well those people are *stupid*.
Unreal's software renderer is great... almost as good as hardware
rendering. And it wasn't coded by Carmack, who could optimize way
better than they can.
Of course, leave it to Carmack to give up on software rendering. The
guy is a fool. He's totally lost sight of the real world because of
all the money he has. No singleplayer? Is he crazy? 90% of people
who buy computer games don't play multiplayer at all.
>Computer
>games have always pushed the margin for computer performance, since
>their inception. This is nothing new, and even applies to consoles.
>How many people expect much more life out of their Sega Saturn now
>that the Dreamcast is out? In a year or so, no one will be making
>games for the Saturn anymore. Upgrade or make due with older games.
Uh... dude, you're way behind the times. Already nobody is making any
games for the Saturn. They haven't been for a year. The system was a
dismal failure.
And consoles last for 5 years in general. I wouldn't call that
"pushing the margin" very much.
Consoles also have most of the best playing games... because
developers spend their time on making good games, not making eye
candy. There's no action-rpg on the PC as good as Zelda 64. There's
no spy/action game on the PC better than Metal Gear Solid. There's a
reaosn for that. If developers tried to make games that good, by the
time they came out, they'd be graphically outdated.
>... and they buy Deer Hunter, Barbie, and Hasbro games. "Hardcore"
>gamers *are* the people buying the games that most of the developers
>make.
No, that's not true. Deer Hunter does not account for more than 50%
of industry sales. And as for Barbie and Hasbro games, those are only
a recent phenomenon. Non hardcore gamers were still the purchasers of
most games eight years ago when there weren't many products directly
targetted at them.
>Nope, because people who have a computer for games will upgrade.
Assuming they know how.
>Those that are just casual gamers couldn't care less, they would just find
>older games in the bargain bins.
Just because one is a causual gamer doesn't mean one buys old bargain
games.
>No company cares about a household
>that buys only a few games a year anyway - that's not their target
>market.
A single household, no. Millions of households though... they ought
to care about.
(It's the market for the games I mentioned above.) Besides,
>most games are made for only around a P2-233 right now. Considering
>that's not even *manufactured* anymore, they are way below the
>"average" system.
Most games? Funny... I just bought half-life, and it says it's
reccomended requirements are a P166. And that's an A title, for
hardcord gamers...
Most titles... huh.... wonder why I didn't see that myself!
Oh... because it's BLATANTLY WRONG! Duh.
>People who buy the latest hardware do so expecting it to be utilized.
>Game companies that fail to do so get criticized, and often have their
>product overlooked.
By the MINORITY.
>They can't afford *not* to support the latest
>hardware -
Not if they want their EGOs satisifed (but not their wallets)
>after all, their competitors probably will be. Many people
>would pass over a non-3D enhanced football game (for example) when a
>3D enhanced one is sitting right beside it on the shelf.
Many people would look at the screenshots, and if they both looked
euqally good, they'd buy the non-3d enhanced one, because MOST game
buyers don't have 3d accelerators yet so they couldn't even run the
other game.
Of course that assumes any company that makes sports titles has
competent enough people to write a decent software renderer. Which
they obviously don't... but that's besides the point.
Are you actually saying that the majority of people who buy sports
games are hardcore gamers with hardware accelerators? That's
laughable. Sports games are a mainstream product, which would appeal
to the same people that Deer Hunter appeals to.
>You have to realize how competitive the industry is. I've seen
>reviewers criticize a game for no 3D acceleration *many* times. In
>fact, I even read a review that criticized the game for "no dedicated
>server system for online play". COME ON!!
Reviewers are hardcore gamers... DUH. Of course they'd complain about
that. They also have LANs, so of course they'd complain about no
multiplayer.
That doesn't mean the majority of people care about HW acceleration or
multiplayer. The people online playing Quake isn't even a fraction of
the people who bought the game.
>That is just utterly silly. "Movie X is a great movie, but movie Y
>isn't that bad. Why watch X when it costs a dollar more to rent, we
>can just watch Y over and over?"
No, it's more like, "Why buy a DVD player to watch Movie X, when I
have to pay a dollar more to rent it, when I can watch movie X on a
VCR instead, and pay a dollar less."
Some movie-o-philes might say it's worth the extra dollar to watch it
on DVD. But wouldn't it piss off a lot of people if it wasn't also
available in VHS format? You betcha. In fact, it would piss off the
majority of the people... but guess what. All the reviewers wouldn't
care, because they are also movie-o-philes. SO guess what? They'd
give it rave reviews, and if it didn't support the thing they like to
watch on, then they'd piss all over it. Even though for the majority
of people, it would be just great.
>Nope, they'll just upgrade. You *know* they will.
I know the hardcore gamers will. We'll see how many copies it sells
compared to other products which CAN run on all hardware (and have
single player)
>I believe the lowest speed Intel processor currently manufactures is
>the 300. (oops... not sure about the Celeron's though) That means
>everyone buying a new system will have at least a P2-266 in it (or
>so). So tell me, why should developers should worry their heads over
>supporting people with a great deal less than that?
Yes, because supporting lower systems means there's more people to buy
their products.
I saw a recent poll on the net done by Raven. It said that 77% of the
people who responded had PII's (and K6's) or better. But it also said
that 21% of people had a plain old Pentium or worse.
Now, this is a poll of hardcore gamers who use the internet, read
gaming news, found this poll in someone's plan file, and responded.
Now... that is clearly not the majority of people who buy games. But
a whole 21% of those hardcore people still didn't have top of the line
systems!
Also, of the people polled, 13% only had voodoo I's, and 4% only had
software renderers!
How many more do you think don't have top of the line systems who
AREN'T hardcore gamers? I'll tell you... a LOT more than just 21%.
>It doesn't just take a week or two to make a game. It takes on
>average about a year and a half.
On average?
There are an awwwful lot of bargain products out there... Deer hunter
only took 4 months, and Hi-Octane only took six weeks... you sure
about that "fact"?
It takes an average of a year and a half to make a triple A title
maybe... and a year to make an A title maybe. But not a year and a
half to make the average game.
When you design the game, you shoot
>at a moving target as to where you *think* the hardware world will be
>at the time. No one beginning to design a game at this very moment
>will worry about supporting less than a 266, because in the year or
>two it takes to be coded and published, a 350 (or higher) will be the
>lowest CPU speed you can purchase brand new.
If you can make your game work on a less powerul system, and make your
game just as fun, why bother to make it require a much more powerful
system?
Metal Gear Solid ran on a lowly Playstation... and it's possibly THE
best game of all time.
>Additionally, if they aim too low and don't add in enough advanced
>features, they will be *roasted* by the gaming community. Worse, their
>competition *will* have those features, and will outsell them by the
>truckload.
BS. If Quake 3 and Half-Life came out at the same time, I would have
bought Half-Life. Even if I had a stong enough system to run Quake 3.
It's simply a better game. (Because it has single player, and Quake 3
won't.)
But you might bitch about that...
So, replace Unreal with Quake 3. The same holds true. You can't say
HL supports more "features" than Unreal.
Grue
>On Sat, 27 Feb 1999 06:07:14 GMT, gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>
><snippage>
>
>>I don't see why these companies STILL feel the need to push the
>>hardware so much. Don't they realise that it's getting to the point
>>of diminishing returns?
>
>No it's not, people have been saying this very thing for years and
>years. "What? A 486 suddenly is not good enough!?" This is especially
>true when it comes to id's games, since they tend to push the hardware
>a lot more. Remember the flamefest that erupted, when people realized
>that Quake wasn't going to run (well) on anything less than a Pentium?
>Despite that id "promised" that 486dx2-66 would "run just fine".
And guess what? Quake SUCKED ASS, and was ugly as hell. They should
have just upgraded the Doom engine, and spent more time on the
gameplay and artwork.
Instead, of Quake, I bought Duke Nukem, which was far nicer visually
and gameplay wise, even though it didn't have as nice of shadows or
overrated 3D enemies that slow the system down so much you can only
have one or two on the screen at a time.
>It's history repeating.
You're right it is... I would choose Half-Life over Unreal even
though Unreal has a better renderer.
And when Quake 3 comes out... guess what? I'll choose Duke Nukem
Forever over it, because it will have better gameplay instead of
wasting it's time with silly curves and volumetric fog.
Freon
>"Freon" <S...@signature.com> wrote:
>>Dude.. Vertex lighting is for people to enable if they have a slow system.
>>The regular stuff is still there for people with real systems :).
>>Guess you misunderstood the part that said:
>>"it's not exactly attractive. It's not horrible -- Jedi Knight and Descent
>>both used vertex lighting -- but it's not very competitive in terms of
image
>>quality with, say, Quake3's native rendering method"
>
>I didn't miss that part, and they forgot to mention that it's also not
>very competitive, with say, Quake 2.
>
>Come on people... there's no reason they can't make a fully scaleable
>game in this day and age. Systems are fast enough to support it. Let
>the game automatically scale back to Quake 2 level technology if
>that's all my system can run. But don't give me only the option of
>either kick ass looking visuals, or Jedi Knight.
The reason for this is because only a select few video cards are having the
problems.
The majority of people will be able to use the standard lighting without
problems. People with old cards like Riva128, Voodoo1, and Permedia2 will
have to take a jump back. They have better things to do than sit around
making a ton of different lighting methods.
>>There was never going to be LOD on the world.
>
>Yes there was. I read it somewhere. And someone else said that they
>heard it would be done when the level loads.
Well, I have been following Quake3 since it was announced and dont ever
recall LOD on the world itself.
Gunslingr3
to know the bastards blatantly LIED on the box when they said it was a 3D
accelerator?<<
This is not intended as an insult, but how much money did you spend on your
card? Isn't the $100-300 dollars you plunk down for a piece of hardware worth
investigating a little? There are _many_ sites on the web that offer benchmark
comparisons and explain which features are important (and included in
particular cards)
>>Still, I only bought my Voodoo two years ago, and only a year ago I upgraded
to a 166.<<
When upgrading a computer it's best to time your moves. For example, I
bought my P150 3 years ago (this April) because the P200 and P266's were just
hitting the market. This drove down the price of the system and made it more
affordable. This April or May I intend to make my next upgrade, most likely a
P450 (since the PIII's are coming out).
Insofar as video cards, that's the toughest thing to judge. My first
accelerator was based on the Rendition chipset. It certainly didn't recieve
wide industry support, but I purchased it for Nascar 2 (and believe me, I got
hours on the penny use out of it).
Last year, as the Voodoo2 loomed on the horizon I picked up the Voodoo1
quite cheaply. Considering my aforementioned processor, I did a little
research and learned that the Voodoo2 moved the bottleneck back the processor
(at that time).
>>I don't see why these companies STILL feel the need to push the hardware so
much. Don't they realise that it's getting to the point of diminishing
returns? The MAJORITY of people who buy games aren't
hardcore gamers who'll uograde every six months.<<
Because the majority of gamers DO upgrade (not every 6 months, but usually
around 18-24 months).
The point of diminishing returns has not been reached for most gamers.
>>So if companies start pusing their game requirements past what's currently
the average system, then they're gonna start selling a lot less games because a
lot fewer people will have the systems powerful enough to run them.<<
People have been making this argument for better than 8 years. :)
Trust me when I tell you if id released a game that had the graphics of
Doom, but a wonderful framerate, they'd have trouble giving it away considering
the market.
>>And the processor thing isn't the real thing that's bugging me. It's the 3d
card thing. Are we now going to be exapected to upgrade our 3D card every year
in ADDITION to our CPU? Is it now going to cost $700 or so every year to
upgrade our PC's to run the lastest games instead of only about $500?<<
Maybe you misread the .plan file. id is making their game so that the some
of the new effects can be turned off by people with old computers and 3d
hardware. This means that if you could play Q2 you should be able to play Q3,
you just won't get to see the stuff the people with the horsepower to run it in
full glory do.
>>Halff life runs prettyy good on my system. And it looks pretty good too.
The difrence between half-life's visuals, and Quake 3's visuals sin't nearly
the same as the difrence between Quake's visuals and Duke Nukem's. Do we
really need these extra visuals RIGHT NOW?<<
Half Life uses the Q2 engine. If you can run it good you should be able to
run Q3.
YOU don't have to have them. YOU can turn them off. Some people want
them, id is making the game with them. What is your complaint?
>>And Id could do an engine that does just as good of visuals but runs twice as
fast on my system... so why are they wasting their time making the visuals
nicer? Shouldn't they be more worried about the framerate in deathmatch than
spline curves?<<
What makes you think they could make the old stuff run "twice as fast" on
your computer?
The reason they are able to generate these new visuals is a direct result
of the fact most gamers have computers that are faster than yours.
As I've said before, if it doesn't matter to you id is making it so you can
shut them OFF. Why are you complaining?
>>Uh... that didn't make any sense. What the hell do you mean by RGB? Regress
back to 24bit color?<<
Just checking how long you've been computer gaming. I figure some others
will recognize RGB, it was step we made after Monochrome monitors. I can
remember the nashing of teeth when games jumped to EGA and then VGA. People
like you fumed that new games didn't support their antiquated monitors and
video cards.
>>> The effects are only worthless if you have a worthless gaming machine.
>Time marches on, don't be afraid.
My machine is hardly worthless. It'll be good to run almost everygame that
comes out besides top of the line 3D games for another year or two. It'll run
Duke Forever, Messiah, and any lucasarts graphicadventure that comes out in the
next year. Hardly worthless.<<
Yes, just as I could still run Sierra's old adventure games on my RGB
monitor. But to enjoy the newest games, with features my hardware didn't
support, I had to upgrade.
I'll say it one more time, you can turn OFF the new features. Why are you
bitching seeing as how that .plan file was written to placate Luddites like
yourself? id is pandering to the gamers who can't upgrade and you're bitching.
Why?
Gunslinger
JSpectre07
>people to upgrade all the time? I think not. They just reach fewer
>consumers, and the consumers they do reach have less money to spend on
>their hobbies.
No one is "forcing" you to do anything. If the staggeringly beautiful pictures
of Q3A don't convince you it's worth an upgrade, then stay away. You won't be
missed.
>Must have been severely affecting your head too, for you to waste your
>money on upgrading to a Voodoo II when you were running a P166.
What an ignorant statement. Number one, a V2 with my 166 allowed me to run at
800x600 at about 60 FPS vs. my V1 at 640x480 at about 35. Secondly, I bought it
about a month before I made my (planned in advance) upgrade to my PII-300. I
have now had this accelerator for over a year, and played what must be
THOUSANDS of games of Quake on it. Thank you, 3dfx and id Software, for all the
joy.
>Hm, lesse... need a new motherboard... new chip.... and now I need new
>ram to go with that new chip... and now I need a new case, because I
>don't have enough fans in my current one...
Get a goddamn job and quit bitching. If you don't want to upgrade then don't
expect to play cutting-edge games. Computers and computer parts are so CHEAP
now. It amazes me that people bitch about having to drop a couple hundred on a
new processor and a 3d card. Go back about 5 years and see how much a high-end
processor would've run you... don't bother with 3d accelerators, they didn't
really exist...
>Gee, do you know of some Lucasarts adventure coming out that will make
>my system non-viable in that time?
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about "games". To each his own, I'd
rather be clubbed over the head than play an adventure "game". Even so, what
will you do when Lucasarts announces "That's it, we're making the jump to 3D
too"?
Rygar1
>ry...@email.com (Rygar1) wrote:
>Unreal's software renderer is great... almost as good as hardware
>rendering. And it wasn't coded by Carmack, who could optimize way
>better than they can.
Michael Abrash did the optimization for the original Quake... I wonder
how much Carmack did this time around ;)
>Of course, leave it to Carmack to give up on software rendering. The
>guy is a fool. He's totally lost sight of the real world because of
>all the money he has.
What difference does that make, they get all their 3D cards for free
anyway. And *what* hardcore gamer, someone that will buy Quake 3,
*doesn't* have a 3D accelerator?? Very few.
> No singleplayer? Is he crazy? 90% of people
>who buy computer games don't play multiplayer at all.
Well, I can't argue there :o) I probably won't buy it. I'm not a
big online guy myself.
>Uh... dude, you're way behind the times. Already nobody is making any
>games for the Saturn. They haven't been for a year. The system was a
>dismal failure.
Okay, say some new PSX then :o) I don't follow consoles.
>And consoles last for 5 years in general. I wouldn't call that
>"pushing the margin" very much.
They just have a longer cycle is all.
>Consoles also have most of the best playing games... because
>developers spend their time on making good games, not making eye
>candy.
Wrong - developers have to spend a hell of a lot of time trying to
squeeze a game into the confines of the console. They only have x
amount of RAM, x amount of CD space, etc.
Saying consoles have better games is silly anyway - the games tend to
be extremely different in a lot of respects. Let's see how fun Civ II
would be on a console. And oh my, don't we love those save points!
> There's no action-rpg on the PC as good as Zelda 64.
That's traditionally a console thing though. It's what they're here
for. Most PC gamers are a bit more cerebral. There's no strategy
game as good as Civ II on the console either. The average PC gamer is
older than the average console gamer. Most of them don't want to be
jumping around on platforms like Mario. If you don't believe me, read
all the half life complaints about jumping :)
> There's
>no spy/action game on the PC better than Metal Gear Solid. There's a
>reaosn for that. If developers tried to make games that good, by the
>time they came out, they'd be graphically outdated.
Why would you think that? You can't make a fun game with a high
polygon count?
>>... and they buy Deer Hunter, Barbie, and Hasbro games. "Hardcore"
>>gamers *are* the people buying the games that most of the developers
>>make.
>
>No, that's not true. Deer Hunter does not account for more than 50%
>of industry sales. And as for Barbie and Hasbro games, those are only
>a recent phenomenon. Non hardcore gamers were still the purchasers of
>most games eight years ago when there weren't many products directly
>targetted at them.
Times change, sorry. Look at the PC Data best sellers list for say
the last 3 years. The number of games on that list most of us here
would buy are few and far between. Non-gamers still didn't buy more
than a few games a year anyway.
>>Those that are just casual gamers couldn't care less, they would just find
>>older games in the bargain bins.
>
>Just because one is a causual gamer doesn't mean one buys old bargain
>games.
You twisted around what I said. I was talking about when their
computer gets older. They only buy a few games a year, they don't care
what the latest and greatest is, and their prime concern becomes "does
it run on my machine". Why do you think they have bargain bins in the
first place?
>>No company cares about a household
>>that buys only a few games a year anyway - that's not their target
>>market.
>
>A single household, no. Millions of households though... they ought
>to care about.
If they buy less than 6 games a year, what is the likelihood that they
will buy any one company's game? Think about it. They go for the real
gaming market of people that buy 15 games a year or more. If you want
people to sell games for *everyone*, you won't see *anything* but Deer
Hunter, Lego, Tonka, Barbie, and Hasbro games. The gaming market, as
with all other markets, has different submarkets, and you try to
target only one or two markets at a time. Those games I just mentioned
target those people that buy 6 games a year. Fine, let them. I don't
want to buy Quake 3 to find out they targetted the same group of
people, because I'm almost guaranteed to be disappointed.
Do you think the Battleground series was designed to appeal to a wide
audience? Nope. Gee, how come the 9th game in the series just came
out? Because their target submarket is still buying them, and still
supporting them. If *they* made a game that required a P2-400, they
would die. Why? Their target market just doesn't have the machinery,
and for playing turn based wargames, why should they?
> (It's the market for the games I mentioned above.) Besides,
>>most games are made for only around a P2-233 right now. Considering
>>that's not even *manufactured* anymore, they are way below the
>>"average" system.
>
>Most games? Funny... I just bought half-life, and it says it's
>reccomended requirements are a P166. And that's an A title, for
>hardcord gamers...
Gee, picking one example is just *so* challenging, isn't it? What
does "most" mean?
>Most titles... huh.... wonder why I didn't see that myself!
>
>Oh... because it's BLATANTLY WRONG! Duh.
The implication I was giving was that most games run reasonably on a
233, not that it was the MINIMUM REQ. Use your head.
>>People who buy the latest hardware do so expecting it to be utilized.
>>Game companies that fail to do so get criticized, and often have their
>>product overlooked.
>
>By the MINORITY.
Oh hell no, the majority of their target market! How many people
would give a 3D shooter that didn't have 3D acceleration a chance
right now? Look at Nam, look how it got lambasted for shitty
graphics. I don't recall one mention of the words "gameplay" in the
reviews. Just complaints about the subpar graphics, no 3D
acceleration, and no internet play. Gee, looks like the basic feature
list went up huh? Duke 3D *rocked* when it came out, but there is no
question if the exact same game came out right now, it wouldn't sell
as well.
>>They can't afford *not* to support the latest
>>hardware -
>
>Not if they want their EGOs satisifed (but not their wallets)
You don't understand what competition is. Making games is a BUSINESS.
It's not about people with big heads trying to compare penis sizes.
They have to put out a product that will sell, or they will be out of
business. Period. Tell me id and Epic aren't doing so well right now
because their technology outstrips the competition.
>>after all, their competitors probably will be. Many people
>>would pass over a non-3D enhanced football game (for example) when a
>>3D enhanced one is sitting right beside it on the shelf.
>
>Many people would look at the screenshots, and if they both looked
>euqally good, they'd buy the non-3d enhanced one, because MOST game
>buyers don't have 3d accelerators yet so they couldn't even run the
>other game.
Most game buyers means shit. There are people that buy cars every 15
years and those that buy/lease them every 2-6 years. Which do *you*
think car companies care about? It's not rocket science.
Additionally, what exactly is the likelihood a non-3D enhanced game
that can look equally as good as a 3D enhanced counterpart?
And more games ARE bought by people that own 3D accelerators. The
difference is they buy 20-40 a year instead of 3-6 or so. You can't
look at population numbers, you have to look at volume sell through.
>Are you actually saying that the majority of people who buy sports
>games are hardcore gamers with hardware accelerators? That's
>laughable. Sports games are a mainstream product, which would appeal
>to the same people that Deer Hunter appeals to.
I didn't say that at all. Don't you think though that if someone had a
3D card they wouldn't be leaning towards the accelerated one? If your
answer is no, you probably don't own a 3D card yourself.
>Reviewers are hardcore gamers... DUH. Of course they'd complain about
>that. They also have LANs, so of course they'd complain about no
>multiplayer.
Wake up time. Most multiplayer games have TCP/IP support. Multiplayer
games are snubbed without internet play nowadays.
Who do you think reviewers are writing for? Do you REALLY think
someone that bought Deer Hunter read a review for it in a gaming
magazine? Now, don't you think the majority of the people that bought
Half Life read some previews, or perhaps even waited for the first
reviews?
>That doesn't mean the majority of people care about HW acceleration or
>multiplayer. The people online playing Quake isn't even a fraction of
>the people who bought the game.
You aren't thinking in the right terms. "There are 6 billion people on
this planet, look how few have 3D accelerators". Guess what, most
people that own a PC didn't buy it just to play games. The hardcore
market is the ONLY market most game developers care about. They don't
care about the Hasbro buying masses, because their game will *never*
appeal to them in the first place For the most part, they can't
compete at the same low price point, and they don't have the same
exposure to attract the mass appeal. Everyone knows Barbie, much less
people know about Half Life. They want to attract the gamer that has
recent hardware, lots of money to spend, and buys 15 games or more a
year.
>>That is just utterly silly. "Movie X is a great movie, but movie Y
>>isn't that bad. Why watch X when it costs a dollar more to rent, we
>>can just watch Y over and over?"
>
>No, it's more like, "Why buy a DVD player to watch Movie X, when I
>have to pay a dollar more to rent it, when I can watch movie X on a
>VCR instead, and pay a dollar less."
Rental costs are the same, BTW. This is funny though, because this is
your same argument for 3D accelerators. Obviously, you haven't *seen*
DVD quality as compared to VHS. I'm not piss poor, I have a DVD, and I
will spend a dollar more if I have to to get the quality. That's life
- if you want quality, you have to *pay* for it. It applies to
EVERYTHING and ANYTHING on the market. Quality is more expensive. Why
should the gaming market be different?
Feature lists happen in every industry. Tell me now a new car doesn't
get criticized for not having air bags. Tell me a receiver that
doesn't support Dolby 5.1 surround will sell as well for DVD players
as one that does. Improvements in technology are a fact of life, and
if companies don't stay on top, they lose business. They don't care
if someone that makes 12 grand a year can't afford their reciever, and
why should they? Having a piss poor product doesn't increase your
customer base, ever, in any industry.
>Some movie-o-philes might say it's worth the extra dollar to watch it
>on DVD. But wouldn't it piss off a lot of people if it wasn't also
>available in VHS format? You betcha. In fact, it would piss off the
>majority of the people... but guess what. All the reviewers wouldn't
>care, because they are also movie-o-philes. SO guess what? They'd
>give it rave reviews, and if it didn't support the thing they like to
>watch on, then they'd piss all over it. Even though for the majority
>of people, it would be just great.
Again, "majority of people". Majority of "game buyers" have 3D
accelerators. Sorry, they do. Just take a look at your little poll
later.
>>Nope, they'll just upgrade. You *know* they will.
>
>I know the hardcore gamers will. We'll see how many copies it sells
>compared to other products which CAN run on all hardware (and have
>single player)
Are you new to computer gaming? How many people upgraded to play
Doom? Quake? Quake 2? If you think people won't upgrade to play the
latest hot game, you're mistaken. People upgraded to play Unreal, and
lots of flight sim junkies upgraded just for Falcon 4.0
>>I believe the lowest speed Intel processor currently manufactures is
>>the 300. (oops... not sure about the Celeron's though) That means
>>everyone buying a new system will have at least a P2-266 in it (or
>>so). So tell me, why should developers should worry their heads over
>>supporting people with a great deal less than that?
>
>Yes, because supporting lower systems means there's more people to buy
>their products.
Silly, there is a LIMIT to how long you can milk certain system
requirements. Just how appealing is a first person shooter that can
run on a 386 to a gamer now? According to you, it would sell better
than Quake would! The "more people blah" argument doesn't mean shit.
It only applies to very specific genres. For instance, Starcraft I'm
sure sold lots of copies because of the low system requirements, but
it's just not as demanding a style of game. No FPS could come out
right now with the same system requirements and sell very well,
because the target market already has systems that will play games
like Quake 2 and Unreal.
>I saw a recent poll on the net done by Raven. It said that 77% of the
>people who responded had PII's (and K6's) or better. But it also said
>that 21% of people had a plain old Pentium or worse.
Standard 80-20 rule. You don't try to please 100% of the people, you
pick a target and stick with it. By aiming for PII's, the cover 80%
of the market. Simple logic.
>Now, this is a poll of hardcore gamers who use the internet, read
>gaming news, found this poll in someone's plan file, and responded.
>
>Now... that is clearly not the majority of people who buy games.
Sigh. These people spend more money in one year on games than everyone
that buys Hasbro games combined.
Think of a high-class hotel where rooms are $1000 a night. Sure, bums
off the street won't be able to come in, but do you think anyone gives
a shit? Will this hotel make money? No kidding it will. I don't
think they'd be crying for the 99%+ of the population that can't
afford the room.
>Also, of the people polled, 13% only had voodoo I's, and 4% only had
>software renderers!
What happened to your "most people don't have 3D accelerators? :o)
>How many more do you think don't have top of the line systems who
>AREN'T hardcore gamers? I'll tell you... a LOT more than just 21%.
And like I keep telling you, no one cares. If they can't afford to
upgrade, they can't afford many games can they?
>>It doesn't just take a week or two to make a game. It takes on
>>average about a year and a half.
>
>On average?
>
>There are an awwwful lot of bargain products out there... Deer hunter
>only took 4 months, and Hi-Octane only took six weeks... you sure
>about that "fact"?
Do you understand what "average" means? Unreal took 4 years. So did
Falcon 4.0. BC3000 took what, seven? ( LOL!!) Try to use your head.
The average development life cycle for a game is 1 1/2 years. Either
that, or every issue I read of Game Developer is wrong. Cripes, it
takes people that buy a ready-made engine at least a year!! Many
games take 2 years or more. That evens out quite nicely with the crap
that takes months to make.
>It takes an average of a year and a half to make a triple A title
>maybe... and a year to make an A title maybe. But not a year and a
>half to make the average game.
You don't just start coding a game. There is a ton of work done before
the game ever starts to be coded. Before you even hear of a game there
has probably been about 6 months of work on it. Sure, not by a full
development team, but it's still development time.
>If you can make your game work on a less powerul system, and make your
>game just as fun, why bother to make it require a much more powerful
>system?
Because if your competitor comes out with a game just as fun but looks
better, people will buy it instead.
>Metal Gear Solid ran on a lowly Playstation... and it's possibly THE
>best game of all time.
Whatever, that's totally irrelevant. Pac Man is still the best game of
all time to many people, or Tetris. Your opinions don't matter, and
certainly the flight sim or strategy game people would laugh at this
comment.
>>Additionally, if they aim too low and don't add in enough advanced
>>features, they will be *roasted* by the gaming community. Worse, their
>>competition *will* have those features, and will outsell them by the
>>truckload.
>
>BS. If Quake 3 and Half-Life came out at the same time, I would have
>bought Half-Life. Even if I had a stong enough system to run Quake 3.
>It's simply a better game. (Because it has single player, and Quake 3
>won't.)
Quake 3 *does* have a single player game, and making any assumption
that a game already released is a better game than one that hasn't
been is quite silly. It doesn't have to be your "type" of game either
for you to suddenly find yourself enjoying it immensely. I hated
online gaming until I tried Starcraft, now I'm addicted to it.
And what if Half Life looked like one of those FPS that ran on 386's,
would it have sold as well?
>So, replace Unreal with Quake 3. The same holds true. You can't say
>HL supports more "features" than Unreal.
It's not exactly hard to find a few things that break just about any
general rule. You can say just about anything and I'll find an example
that makes what you said untrue. I'm not basing my arguments on
scientific fact, but on real world trends. Of course things pop up
that break trends. What you don't seem to realize is that one example
that breaks the mold does not prove your argument, and it does not
disprove mine.
Freon
>ry...@email.com (Rygar1) wrote:
>>Read this group. When "antialiasing" is a household word among gamers,
>>it's because they *want* their hardware pushed. How many people said
>>they wouldn't buy a game that wasn't 3D accelerated right after the
>>Voodoo became popular? *Plenty*. (Although I'm sure they changed
>>their minds down the road)
>
>Well those people are *stupid*.
>
>Unreal's software renderer is great... almost as good as hardware
>rendering. And it wasn't coded by Carmack, who could optimize way
>better than they can.
Do you have a 3D accelerator? Judging from your post, I dont think you do.
Unreal software mode _looks_ ok, but nowhere near what accelerated mode
looks like.. Then performance wise, it is MUCH slower.
>Of course, leave it to Carmack to give up on software rendering. The
>guy is a fool. He's totally lost sight of the real world because of
>all the money he has. No singleplayer? Is he crazy? 90% of people
>who buy computer games don't play multiplayer at all.
He is giving up on software rendering becuase almost all of his target
market uses an accelerator.
Also, anyone who has bought a new computer within the last year most likely
has an accelerator... Not only that, how can you call your self a gamer,
especially with first person shooters, if you dont have one?
90% of consumers may not play multiplayer (debatable anyway).. Think they
give a rats ass?
The game is designed for the people that DO play multiplayer. A very large
% of the people who bought Quake1 and 2 do play multiplayer.. Get it?
Besides, they only have to sell about 10,000 copies to break even.. Gee
that is gonna be tough. heh.
>>... and they buy Deer Hunter, Barbie, and Hasbro games. "Hardcore"
>>gamers *are* the people buying the games that most of the developers
>>make.
>
>No, that's not true. Deer Hunter does not account for more than 50%
>of industry sales. And as for Barbie and Hasbro games, those are only
>a recent phenomenon. Non hardcore gamers were still the purchasers of
>most games eight years ago when there weren't many products directly
>targetted at them.
Games like Deer Hunter have been in the top 5 for game sales since the first
one was released last year. Most the time, it was #1 or #2.
>>I believe the lowest speed Intel processor currently manufactures is
>>the 300. (oops... not sure about the Celeron's though) That means
>>everyone buying a new system will have at least a P2-266 in it (or
>>so). So tell me, why should developers should worry their heads over
>>supporting people with a great deal less than that?
>
>Yes, because supporting lower systems means there's more people to buy
>their products.
They dont really care about that. People with low end systems are not in
their plan for sales anyway. People with low end systems generaly do not
buy a lot of games.. If they do, they are not usually games that require
much of a system to run.. Like older RTS games, board games, hunting games,
Myst, Riven, etc.
>I saw a recent poll on the net done by Raven. It said that 77% of the
>people who responded had PII's (and K6's) or better. But it also said
>that 21% of people had a plain old Pentium or worse.
>Now, this is a poll of hardcore gamers who use the internet, read
>gaming news, found this poll in someone's plan file, and responded.
An Internet poll is hardly accurate. The results depend entirely on the
type of site.
Hell, there could have been only 100 responses. What happens if on that
day, there just happened to be a couple Pentium owners there.. Maybe they
were there looking for info on another game.. Maybe they were there becuase
a friend told them to check it out.. Just becuase they answered a poll,
does not mean they are hardcore gamers.. Infact, you arent a "hardcore
gamer" if you are still using a low end system anyway.
>Now... that is clearly not the majority of people who buy games. But
>a whole 21% of those hardcore people still didn't have top of the line
>systems!
They arent hardcore gamers. You cant be a hardcore gamer with an old P5..
>Also, of the people polled, 13% only had voodoo I's, and 4% only had
>software renderers!
>How many more do you think don't have top of the line systems who
>AREN'T hardcore gamers? I'll tell you... a LOT more than just 21%.
Who cares?
>>It doesn't just take a week or two to make a game. It takes on
>>average about a year and a half.
>
>On average?
>
>There are an awwwful lot of bargain products out there... Deer hunter
>only took 4 months, and Hi-Octane only took six weeks... you sure
>about that "fact"?
Games that have no depth, required no engine creation or modification..
Sure, they dont take very long at all. The majority of games take a year or
longer.. Some much longer (Unreal).
>It takes an average of a year and a half to make a triple A title
>maybe... and a year to make an A title maybe. But not a year and a
>half to make the average game.
Most the time, AAA titles take longer. Unreal (not quite AAA in my book)
took 4 years. Half-Life took 2 years.
Grue
>>Now, is it really a viable economic model for a company to force
>>people to upgrade all the time? I think not. They just reach fewer
>>consumers, and the consumers they do reach have less money to spend on
>>their hobbies.
>
>No one is "forcing" you to do anything. If the staggeringly beautiful pictures
>of Q3A don't convince you it's worth an upgrade, then stay away. You won't be
>missed.
>
>>Must have been severely affecting your head too, for you to waste your
>>money on upgrading to a Voodoo II when you were running a P166.
>
>What an ignorant statement. Number one, a V2 with my 166 allowed me to run at
>800x600 at about 60 FPS vs. my V1 at 640x480 at about 35. Secondly, I bought it
>about a month before I made my (planned in advance) upgrade to my PII-300. I
>have now had this accelerator for over a year, and played what must be
>THOUSANDS of games of Quake on it. Thank you, 3dfx and id Software, for all the
>joy.
Well if that's true, sorry... but I was just quoting what I read in
the online benchmarks o the card which all said that if you had less
than a 200, don't bother, upgrade your CPU instead. A 30fps increase
on a P166 wouldn't jive with that.
>Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about "games". To each his own, I'd
>rather be clubbed over the head than play an adventure "game". Even so, what
>will you do when Lucasarts announces "That's it, we're making the jump to 3D
>too"?
They already HAVE done some 3D stuff. Grim Fandango. You should try
it. You're fucking crazy if you haven't played at least that and The
Curse of Monkey Island. I wasn't a big adventure game fan myself
before these two beautys (and maybe Full Throttle) came along. If you
haven't played a graphical adventure in several years, maybe you ought
to go back and give them a look. They've advanced a long way with
their humor, the addition of voice acting, their plots, and great
music. (Not to mention the graphics)
JSpectre07
>Curse of Monkey Island. I wasn't a big adventure game fan myself
>before these two beautys (and maybe Full Throttle) came along.
My only problem with adventure games is that once you beat it, it's over. A
game like Q2 or SMAC you can play over, and over, and over, etc. Grim Fandango
at least _looks_ interesting. Come on, bargain bin.
Grue
>On Sat, 27 Feb 1999 17:30:04 GMT, gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>
>>ry...@email.com (Rygar1) wrote:
>
>>Unreal's software renderer is great... almost as good as hardware
>>rendering. And it wasn't coded by Carmack, who could optimize way
>>better than they can.
>
>Michael Abrash did the optimization for the original Quake... I wonder
>how much Carmack did this time around ;)
Hm, you have a point... with hardware accel, he doesn't really need to
optimize, does he. Maybe that why he didn't do a software renderer
this time around even though Unreal proved that it's possible to do a
viable one.
>What difference does that make, they get all their 3D cards for free
>anyway. And *what* hardcore gamer, someone that will buy Quake 3,
>*doesn't* have a 3D accelerator?? Very few.
I've got one... but I wasn't planning on upgrading to a Voodoo 2 or 3
anytime soon. I wanted to wait until 3DFX got o their lazy asses and
put in 24bit color support. I don't trust other cards. Every time
I've seen one of them run a game, something has been screwed up. On
one such non-3dfx card, Carmageddon was like a disco.
>Well, I can't argue there :o) I probably won't buy it. I'm not a
>big online guy myself.
'Nother question... what's to stave off piracy? If they don't support
single player, the game is likely to have FAR less data than Quake 2
had, for example. (Course the high res texutre maps could make up for
that...)
>They just have a longer cycle is all.
Well I wish the PC did... even just a year would help to improve PC
gaming in general. Console gaming is far better than it would be if
they put out new consoles every year. Too much hype is put on higher
resolutions and polygon counts. But look at games like Zelda and
Banjo Kazooie. That's some pretty damn good looking stuff for a
console which doesn't even have as much power as my P166 w/voodoo.
Developers spend more time making use of what they have, and they do
cool stuff with it. Like Turok for example... how many PC games have
modelled a jungle as nicely with all the plants and stuff? Not many.
They waste all the polygons on the levels instead of things to spice
up the landscape. Can you imagine all the objects they could put in a
Quake 3 level if they got rid of those curves? Maybe they could
actually make what they originally intended to do with Quake.
>>Consoles also have most of the best playing games... because
>>developers spend their time on making good games, not making eye
>>candy.
>
>Wrong - developers have to spend a hell of a lot of time trying to
>squeeze a game into the confines of the console. They only have x
>amount of RAM, x amount of CD space, etc.
>
>Saying consoles have better games is silly anyway - the games tend to
>be extremely different in a lot of respects. Let's see how fun Civ II
>would be on a console. And oh my, don't we love those save points!
Not all games use "save points". Metal Gear Solid didn't, and neither
does Zelda. It's just agame design decision.
And Metal Gear Solid isn't so diffrent from a PC game... it's like...
Crusader: No Remorse... sort of.
And Resident Evil made a sucessful conversion to the PC as well. And
so did Final Fantasy. Granted, when they're ported, they still "feel"
like console games. Not sure why that is.
>That's traditionally a console thing though. It's what they're here
>for. Most PC gamers are a bit more cerebral.
You don't think you could do a game like Zelda 64 but which is more
adult oriented, with much more intelligent conversation, etc? That's
what Metal Gear Solid is basically.
>There's no strategy game as good as Civ II on the console either.
Well I tihnk that can be attributed to the fact that it's hard to move
a pointer around with a joypad. Analog sticks help though. Anyhow,
wan't there a kick ass strategy game called Nobunaga's Ambition on the
NES years ago? I don't think they aren't on consoles because they
can't be done... maybe companies just think they aren't viable. And
maybe they're not. But maybe, like Deer Hunter, people are just
waiting for a decent one to come along.
>The average PC gamer is older than the average console gamer. Most of
>them don't want to be jumping around on platforms like Mario. If you
>don't believe me, read all the half life complaints about jumping :)
That's a diffrent Genre of game. I'm sure if someone could do a game
like Mario on the PC with the spot on control that the analog stick
aforded on the N64, it would be fairly popular. I would have bought
Croc for the PC, except that the controls sucked, and the game was a
bad Mario clone with none of the clever design. (It was your basic
playformer, instead of an exceptional one)
Now tell me this... Have you ever heard someone say a bad word about
Commander Keen? And Duke Nukem is pretty popular. It just takes the
right design.
>>There's
>>no spy/action game on the PC better than Metal Gear Solid. There's a
>>reaosn for that. If developers tried to make games that good, by the
>>time they came out, they'd be graphically outdated.
>
>Why would you think that? You can't make a fun game with a high
>polygon count?
No... the problem is that developers just don't spend that much time
on it, because they're afraid to try and figure out where the market
will be in 2-4 years time.
I mean look at Thief... They were late delivering it, and the game
was graphically outdated by the time it arrived. Same for Heart of
Darkness. I think the graphics are great, but people complained about
the fact that they are all low res, and not fullscreen.
>Times change, sorry. Look at the PC Data best sellers list for say
>the last 3 years. The number of games on that list most of us here
>would buy are few and far between. Non-gamers still didn't buy more
>than a few games a year anyway.
Sorry, I've only seen top ten lists. And while I admit, only four of
the top ten titles I'd probably be interested in at any one time, I
don't know what the rest of the list looks like.
And so what if non gamers only bought a few games a year? There are a
hell of a lot more of them!
>You twisted around what I said. I was talking about when their
>computer gets older. They only buy a few games a year, they don't care
>what the latest and greatest is, and their prime concern becomes "does
>it run on my machine". Why do you think they have bargain bins in the
>first place?
Well gee, don't you think they'd buy the latest and greatest still
anyway if it did run on their system?
Come on... developers these days are just lazy! The Amiga had a GUI
that ran fast all those years ago... and look at Windows today. It's
slow, and even when I have 64 megs of ram in my system, it wants 128!
In fact, it crashes if I run out of swapfile space.
And look at how much games install on your HD instead of running off
the CDROM... Load times on the PC should be WAY less off a CDROM than
they are on the Playstation for example. But they're not, they're way
more. At the very least, they should be equal.
>If they buy less than 6 games a year, what is the likelihood that they
>will buy any one company's game? Think about it. They go for the real
>gaming market of people that buy 15 games a year or more. If you want
>people to sell games for *everyone*, you won't see *anything* but Deer
>Hunter, Lego, Tonka, Barbie, and Hasbro games. The gaming market, as
>with all other markets, has different submarkets, and you try to
>target only one or two markets at a time. Those games I just mentioned
>target those people that buy 6 games a year. Fine, let them. I don't
>want to buy Quake 3 to find out they targetted the same group of
>people, because I'm almost guaranteed to be disappointed.
I don't think you need to make Lego games to target the masses.
shitloads of people bought Doom... It ran well on most systems. The
was scaleable too, because you could lower the screen size and it
actually had an effect. Won't be able to really do that with Quake 3
though.
>Do you think the Battleground series was designed to appeal to a wide
>audience? Nope. Gee, how come the 9th game in the series just came
>out?
What's battleground?
>>Most titles... huh.... wonder why I didn't see that myself!
>>
>>Oh... because it's BLATANTLY WRONG! Duh.
>
>The implication I was giving was that most games run reasonably on a
>233, not that it was the MINIMUM REQ. Use your head.
Ah. That's not what you said though. You clearly implied that the
minimum required to run most games was a 233, so everyone should have
at least that now.
>Oh hell no, the majority of their target market! How many people
>would give a 3D shooter that didn't have 3D acceleration a chance
>right now?
If it used the Unreal Engine, and they took the 3D acceleration
support out of it? A lot of people. Their software render looks and
runs great.
If they did Half-Life using such an Unreal engine, woudln't you still
have bought it and played it?
>Look at Nam, look how it got lambasted for shitty
>graphics.
Excuse me, but Nam? A game made by a group of people on the net? A
game where the graphics were so bad, it wouldn't have MATTERED if they
were 24bit and had colored lighting and bilinear filtering? Get real.
Thing sold a few copies though, didn't it. They picked a subject that
wasn't the usual hum-drum "I'm a guy who can carry 50 weapons at once
and I'm on an alien planet" theme.
>I don't recall one mention of the words "gameplay" in the
>reviews.
Funny, because I don't recall it getting lambasted. In fact, I
remember it getting three stars out of five, because of the gameplay.
And I remember coworkers talking about how it actually was cool.
>Just complaints about the subpar graphics, no 3D
>acceleration, and no internet play. Gee, looks like the basic feature
>list went up huh? Duke 3D *rocked* when it came out, but there is no
>question if the exact same game came out right now, it wouldn't sell
>as well.
Obviously not, because the graphics would be too sub par. But if it
came out a year from now with the Unreal engine, which it is, it would
still be viable. Even if it didn't have any net play.
>Additionally, what exactly is the likelihood a non-3D enhanced game
>that can look equally as good as a 3D enhanced counterpart?
Uh... pretty damn good. The Unreal engien is being licensed up the
wazoo, and the software mode looks just as good as the hardware mode.
>And more games ARE bought by people that own 3D accelerators. The
>difference is they buy 20-40 a year instead of 3-6 or so. You can't
>look at population numbers, you have to look at volume sell through.
If companies didn't need software renderers still, why would they have
put one in Unreal? Easy. Because they DO still need them. Now... by
the time Prey comes out... they probably won't. But until that
time...
>I didn't say that at all. Don't you think though that if someone had a
>3D card they wouldn't be leaning towards the accelerated one? If your
>answer is no, you probably don't own a 3D card yourself.
I would lean towards the one with the better graphics and gameplay.
Not towards the one with the HW acceleration.
Heck, I bought a golf game for my dad this xmas. And I chose an older
non-3d one for him from the bargain bin. Because hell, the golfers
and the environements just plain looked better than the one that
supported 3d acceleration because they weren't all angular and shit.
And I'd do the same for a football game. If one had 3d accelerated
graphics, but the game has really bad texture maps, and the sotware
rendered one has really kick ass texture maps and looks like it has
better gameplay, you'd better beleive I'd choose the second one.
Of course if we're talking two identical games here, of course I'd
choose the one with the additional feature. But we're not talking
about 15 diffrent IDENTICAL games with dirent features. We're talking
about 15 diffrent games. I wouldn't have bought tresspasser or Unreal
over half-life, even if half-life only had it's software rendering
mode.
>Wake up time. Most multiplayer games have TCP/IP support. Multiplayer
>games are snubbed without internet play nowadays.
Well DUH. But you said multiplayer. Game's don't NEED multiplayer.
Most people don't even use it. Only multiplayer only games NEED
multiplayer. Rainbow Six would still have been just as popular
without multiplayer. And Quake 2 would have sold just as good as
well.
>Who do you think reviewers are writing for?
Themselves!
Read Next Generation online! They just wrote an article yestarday
about how they're unduly influencing what people put in games, and
they even MENTIONED this multiplayer thing... how mostpeople don't
actually want or need it, and how a lot of development time is wasted
which could be spent fixing the single player game.
>Do you REALLY think
>someone that bought Deer Hunter read a review for it in a gaming
>magazine? Now, don't you think the majority of the people that bought
>Half Life read some previews, or perhaps even waited for the first
>reviews?
Nope. I think the majority of people who bought half-life heard from
a freind of a freind about the game.
>Rental costs are the same, BTW. This is funny though, because this is
>your same argument for 3D accelerators. Obviously, you haven't *seen*
>DVD quality as compared to VHS.
Yes, I have. I didn't say I want a movie-o-phile myself. I was just
using it as an example.
>I'm not piss poor, I have a DVD, and I
>will spend a dollar more if I have to to get the quality.
But most people don't have a DVD player. And it is only a dollar
after all.
Maybe a better analogy would be, would most people buy a DVD player to
get the extra quality? The answer obviously is yes, but they're gonna
take their sweet time with it... that's why VCR tapes are still the
main way movies are released.
>Again, "majority of people". Majority of "game buyers" have 3D
>accelerators. Sorry, they do. Just take a look at your little poll
>later.
The poll is of hardcore gamers only. Non-hardcore gamers wouldn't be
reading that poll and responding.
>>Now, this is a poll of hardcore gamers who use the internet, read
>>gaming news, found this poll in someone's plan file, and responded.
>>
>>Now... that is clearly not the majority of people who buy games.
>
>Sigh. These people spend more money in one year on games than everyone
>that buys Hasbro games combined.
That is blatantly wrong... game game magzines do polls and stuff, and
they're always saying the hardcore gamer isn't the main game buying
force.
>>Also, of the people polled, 13% only had voodoo I's, and 4% only had
>>software renderers!
>
>What happened to your "most people don't have 3D accelerators? :o)
It still stands. This is a hardcore gamer poll, not a "most people"
poll.
>And like I keep telling you, no one cares. If they can't afford to
>upgrade, they can't afford many games can they?
It's not a matter of not being able to afford to upgrade. It's not
wanting to spend the money on upgrading. I certainly would like it if
I didn't have to upgrade all the time. I will be upgrading
eventually, but hell, I play tons of games, and I still have a P166.
Do you think the average PC owner even knows how to upgrade their
system? Do you think they'd want to? My parents won't even buy a
decent sized TV cause they have one that works. Why do you tihnk DVD
is taking so long to saturate the market?
>Whatever, that's totally irrelevant. Pac Man is still the best game of
>all time to many people, or Tetris. Your opinions don't matter, and
>certainly the flight sim or strategy game people would laugh at this
>comment.
It's not just _my_ opinion... it's the opinion of practically every
game reviewer out there.
>And what if Half Life looked like one of those FPS that ran on 386's,
>would it have sold as well?
386's? Come on... that's hardly a fair comparison.
Rygar1
>The game is designed for the people that DO play multiplayer. A very large
>% of the people who bought Quake1 and 2 do play multiplayer.. Get it?
>Besides, they only have to sell about 10,000 copies to break even.. Gee
>that is gonna be tough. heh.
I don't know where this 10,000 copies bit came up from (I'm not
pointing the finger at you, I've heard it many times before), but it's
utter tripe. Even at an unheard of profit margin of $40 a unit, that
would only be $40 grand, and that doesn't start to cover two
employee's salaries. They would be using money they made off of sales
of Quake and the Quake Engine to cover the difference.
Rygar1
>Hm, you have a point... with hardware accel, he doesn't really need to
>optimize, does he. Maybe that why he didn't do a software renderer
>this time around even though Unreal proved that it's possible to do a
>viable one.
His market doesn't need software rendering. It's a waste.
>>Well, I can't argue there :o) I probably won't buy it. I'm not a
>>big online guy myself.
>
>'Nother question... what's to stave off piracy?
<shrug> not my problem :)
>Not all games use "save points". Metal Gear Solid didn't, and neither
>does Zelda. It's just agame design decision.
And a horrible one :)
>And Metal Gear Solid isn't so diffrent from a PC game... it's like...
>Crusader: No Remorse... sort of.
>
>And Resident Evil made a sucessful conversion to the PC as well. And
>so did Final Fantasy. Granted, when they're ported, they still "feel"
>like console games. Not sure why that is.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but cripes, not many developers have
bothered to put forth much effort in doing it right!! I played
"Nightmare Creatures" on PC, and found it kind of enjoyable. UNTIL I
realized I couldn't save in the middle of the level. When I "died"
when I lost all my "extra lives", I uninstalled. Fuck that, I don't
have the time or patience to play sequences over and over. I'm not
12, I have a job, etc etc etc.
>>That's traditionally a console thing though. It's what they're here
>>for. Most PC gamers are a bit more cerebral.
>
>You don't think you could do a game like Zelda 64 but which is more
>adult oriented, with much more intelligent conversation, etc? That's
>what Metal Gear Solid is basically.
I didn't say it couldn't be done, but twitch games are much more a
console thing than a PC thing.
>That's a diffrent Genre of game. I'm sure if someone could do a game
>like Mario on the PC with the spot on control that the analog stick
>aforded on the N64, it would be fairly popular. I would have bought
>Croc for the PC, except that the controls sucked, and the game was a
>bad Mario clone with none of the clever design. (It was your basic
>playformer, instead of an exceptional one)
Maybe there just hasn't been a good game of that time, but
traditionally, they just don't sell well on the PC.
>I mean look at Thief... They were late delivering it, and the game
>was graphically outdated by the time it arrived. Same for Heart of
>Darkness. I think the graphics are great, but people complained about
>the fact that they are all low res, and not fullscreen.
LOL!! Isn't this *exactly* what you were arguing against me about? If
the game isn't near the top of the tech tree, people bash it. If the
game is awesome, like Thief apparently is, people are more forgiving.
BUT, you can't rely on your game being of Thief's caliber. The game
industry is too hit and miss for that.
>>Times change, sorry. Look at the PC Data best sellers list for say
>>the last 3 years. The number of games on that list most of us here
>>would buy are few and far between. Non-gamers still didn't buy more
>>than a few games a year anyway.
>
>Sorry, I've only seen top ten lists. And while I admit, only four of
>the top ten titles I'd probably be interested in at any one time, I
>don't know what the rest of the list looks like.
It doesn't really matter once you get past the top 10 really.
>And so what if non gamers only bought a few games a year? There are a
>hell of a lot more of them!
But like I said, they have a far less chance of buying a game outside
of the top ten. The chances of them buying the game are low enough
that you don't really care to support them *in addition* to your
target audience.
>Come on... developers these days are just lazy!
Whatever, that is the biggest cop out people complaining about games
have. Do you have ANY idea the number of hours they put in? At
crunch time, we're talking 16 hour days! There were shots of the guys
at Blizzard with SLEEPING BAGS in the office! Lazy my freaking ass!!
> The Amiga had a GUI that ran fast all those years ago... and look at
>Windows today. It's slow, and even when I have 64 megs of ram in my
>system, it wants 128! In fact, it crashes if I run out of swapfile space.
Look, everyone wants new shit to need the same resources as old shit,
but it's a freaking impossibility. You CAN'T get more unless you put
IN more! Amiga doesn't have to worry about AGP, IrDA, USB, etc etc
etc. For cripes sake man, of COURSE it was faster, it did FUCK ALL!
>And look at how much games install on your HD instead of running off
>the CDROM...
Thank god for that. It's a little thing known as *performance*.
> Load times on the PC should be WAY less off a CDROM than
>they are on the Playstation for example. But they're not, they're way
>more. At the very least, they should be equal.
Um... don't you think that perchance the amount of data being
transfered is different?
>I don't think you need to make Lego games to target the masses.
>shitloads of people bought Doom... It ran well on most systems. The
>was scaleable too, because you could lower the screen size and it
>actually had an effect. Won't be able to really do that with Quake 3
>though.
You can count the number of PC games as successful as Doom on one
hand. Maybe two hands if you include crap like Myst, Riven, and MS
Flight Sim :o) There is no business model for runaway hit games.
>>Do you think the Battleground series was designed to appeal to a wide
>>audience? Nope. Gee, how come the 9th game in the series just came
>>out?
>
>What's battleground?
My point. You have no idea what they are, because you are not their
target market. However, the series has been doing well enough for
itself for years, and all without mass popularity. If they diluted it
enough and tried to market it to say people like you, they would lose
most of their fan base, whither, and die.
>>The implication I was giving was that most games run reasonably on a
>>233, not that it was the MINIMUM REQ. Use your head.
>
>Ah. That's not what you said though. You clearly implied that the
>minimum required to run most games was a 233, so everyone should have
>at least that now.
This is what I said:
" (It's the market for the games I mentioned above.) Besides,
most games are made for only around a P2-233 right now."
Where did I "clearly imply" minimum?
>If they did Half-Life using such an Unreal engine, woudln't you still
>have bought it and played it?
That's irrelevant. You're talking about a hit game. You can't
compare hit games to the other 99.99% of games that get made and
*aren't* hits.
>>Look at Nam, look how it got lambasted for shitty
>>graphics.
>
>Excuse me, but Nam? A game made by a group of people on the net? A
>game where the graphics were so bad, it wouldn't have MATTERED if they
>were 24bit and had colored lighting and bilinear filtering? Get real.
Okay, so obviously graphics are important.
>Thing sold a few copies though, didn't it.
A few is probably a good estimate :)
>>I don't recall one mention of the words "gameplay" in the
>>reviews.
>
>Funny, because I don't recall it getting lambasted. In fact, I
>remember it getting three stars out of five, because of the gameplay.
>And I remember coworkers talking about how it actually was cool.
It was torched. Roasted. Flambee. At least in all I read.
[Duke 3d]
>Obviously not, because the graphics would be too sub par. But if it
>came out a year from now with the Unreal engine, which it is, it would
>still be viable. Even if it didn't have any net play.
Many people will pass on it if the net play sucks. Don't you
understand that customers, especially people that *love* the product
they buy, are extremely critical and extremely hard to please? "Good
enough" isn't good enough.
>>Additionally, what exactly is the likelihood a non-3D enhanced game
>>that can look equally as good as a 3D enhanced counterpart?
>
>Uh... pretty damn good. The Unreal engien is being licensed up the
>wazoo, and the software mode looks just as good as the hardware mode.
My ass it does. Put your glasses on :o)
>>And more games ARE bought by people that own 3D accelerators. The
>>difference is they buy 20-40 a year instead of 3-6 or so. You can't
>>look at population numbers, you have to look at volume sell through.
>
>If companies didn't need software renderers still, why would they have
>put one in Unreal? Easy. Because they DO still need them.
Unreal was 4 years in development. Software rendering was still a
concern 4 years ago. It just carried through, no reason to take it out
once it's there.
> Now... by the time Prey comes out... they probably won't. But until that
>time...
Sorry, the time is now. You can't judge when and where, it's
happening now.
>>I didn't say that at all. Don't you think though that if someone had a
>>3D card they wouldn't be leaning towards the accelerated one? If your
>>answer is no, you probably don't own a 3D card yourself.
>
>I would lean towards the one with the better graphics and gameplay.
>Not towards the one with the HW acceleration.
Most times acceleration = better graphics. How could you *not* see
that?
>Heck, I bought a golf game for my dad this xmas. And I chose an older
>non-3d one for him from the bargain bin. Because hell, the golfers
>and the environements just plain looked better than the one that
>supported 3d acceleration because they weren't all angular and shit.
Golf is not exactly a prime candidate for 3D acceleration. The only
reason I can see them using it is to speed up screen redraw, and a few
other features like antialiasing, etc.
>>Wake up time. Most multiplayer games have TCP/IP support. Multiplayer
>>games are snubbed without internet play nowadays.
>
>Well DUH. But you said multiplayer. Game's don't NEED multiplayer.
>Most people don't even use it.
Where does this come from? You said something to the effect that
reviewers only flame a game if it doesn't have multiplayer for their
LANs.
> Only multiplayer only games NEED
>multiplayer. Rainbow Six would still have been just as popular
>without multiplayer.
ROFL!! Hell no!! You have no idea. Check out the online community,
multiplayer *made* that game.
> And Quake 2 would have sold just as good as well.
Okay... I'm giving up on you right here and now. If you can't look at
the tens of thousands of people playing on tons of Quake servers, and
think that perhaps multiplayer was somewhat important to it's sales,
there is no point in carrying on a discussion.
>>Who do you think reviewers are writing for?
>
>Themselves!
They don't get paid if they don't write for their audience. Geeze,
it's not hard to realize that. How many reviewers do you think gave
Half Life a higher score than they thought it deserved, simply because
they would have been cut to shreds if they even suggested it might be
only "good"? There were plenty of people in this group that thought
Half Life was just "okay", there must have been at least one reviewer
out there that felt the same!
>Read Next Generation online!
Oh god no, and you can't make me! :o)
>Nope. I think the majority of people who bought half-life heard from
>a freind of a freind about the game.
I'm sure the same can't be said for Barbie :o)
>>I'm not piss poor, I have a DVD, and I
>>will spend a dollar more if I have to to get the quality.
>
>But most people don't have a DVD player. And it is only a dollar
>after all.
But when most people *do* have a DVD, and that time will come, VHS
will eventually go the way of the LP, the 8 track, and the audio
cassette.
>Maybe a better analogy would be, would most people buy a DVD player to
>get the extra quality? The answer obviously is yes, but they're gonna
>take their sweet time with it... that's why VCR tapes are still the
>main way movies are released.
*ONLY* because the initial investment has been so huge. If you get a
3D accelerator, all your older games are still playable. You get a
DVD, you might as well admit you're ready to toss your VHS collection.
It can't play your old DVDs. I have already started replacing my VHS
tapes with the DVD versions.
>>Again, "majority of people". Majority of "game buyers" have 3D
>>accelerators. Sorry, they do. Just take a look at your little poll
>>later.
>
>The poll is of hardcore gamers only. Non-hardcore gamers wouldn't be
>reading that poll and responding.
And like I've been telling you, hardcore gamers are the important
market. I'm not making this shit up, it comes up over and over and
over again in magazines and other print.
>>Sigh. These people spend more money in one year on games than everyone
>>that buys Hasbro games combined.
>
>That is blatantly wrong... game game magzines do polls and stuff, and
>they're always saying the hardcore gamer isn't the main game buying
>force.
You must read different magazines then I do. Are you reading console
magazines and trying to apply their market philosophies to the PC?
Compare an average (say) 6 games a year for a casual gamer, including
titles like Smart Games, Barbie, etc. They buy what, maybe 1 or 2
games a year that most game developers make? Compare that with people
that buy one or two games a month. In some cases, people buy a game
or two every paycheck!
>>What happened to your "most people don't have 3D accelerators? :o)
>
>It still stands. This is a hardcore gamer poll, not a "most people"
>poll.
Sigh. I give up.
>It's not a matter of not being able to afford to upgrade. It's not
>wanting to spend the money on upgrading.
And I don't want to spend money to replace the flat tire I had the
other day. But if I want to continue driving, I have to. If you
don't want to continue playing games, don't upgrade, it's your choice.
All the complaining in the world wouldn't have magically healed my
tire, and it won't boost your 166 to a 400 either.
>Do you think the average PC owner even knows how to upgrade their
>system? Do you think they'd want to? My parents won't even buy a
>decent sized TV cause they have one that works. Why do you tihnk DVD
>is taking so long to saturate the market?
Does the average person know how to fix their own car? Irrelevant.
There is too much knowledge in the world for everyone to know
everything. That is why we have "jobs", because specialized expertise
is needed to complete certain tasks.
>>Whatever, that's totally irrelevant. Pac Man is still the best game of
>>all time to many people, or Tetris. Your opinions don't matter, and
>>certainly the flight sim or strategy game people would laugh at this
>>comment.
>
>It's not just _my_ opinion... it's the opinion of practically every
>game reviewer out there.
LOL!! Whatever. You just said reviewers write only for themselves, so
I can write that off as their own opinions now, can't I? You also
mean *CONSOLE* reviewers, we're talking PC market here.
>>And what if Half Life looked like one of those FPS that ran on 386's,
>>would it have sold as well?
>
>386's? Come on... that's hardly a fair comparison.
P500's are out, that's more than double your P166. You expect your
P166 to last another 2 years. Compare that to the 1 Ghz chip that will
be out around then, and tell me the 386 isn't a fair comparison.
Anyway, I really don't have time for this... I've wasted enough time
already, and this thread is now monumental, so I have to bow out :o)
Jason Dean Malone
Grue wrote:
<BIG SNIP>
Grue, why don't you get your thick (and BIG) head out of your ass and realize
that the world doesn't revolve around you? Active PC game buyers
are usually active hardware buyers as well. Don't like it? Too bad.
Nobody is forcing you to buy PC games- so shut the fuck up and go back
to your console games.
Josh Martin
>
> andr...@rocketmail.com (Andreas) wrote:
> >On Sat, 27 Feb 1999 06:12:32 GMT, gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
> >
> >
> >>If this is true, then it sound acceptable. Though I'd have expected
> >>more from Mr. Carmack. Other companies have released games with
> >>realtime LOD, (flight sims) and Shiny's gonna be releasing Messiah
> >>soon, and it will eature realtime LOD. I thought Mr. Carmack was at
> >>the top of the optimization pile, but I guess he's being pushed off.
> >
> >I know that Messiah does real-time LOD on it's models (based on
> >distance and quality settings) but does it really do realtime LOD on
> >the world itself?
>
> I don't know. It was my understanding that it did.
It doesn't. That's why the characters look like cardboard cut-outs in
the screenshots.
[snip]
> Hey, Mario 64 mananged to use LOD well. And Zelda 64 uses it a lot.
The LOD in those games is really just switching between different models
and textures as you get closer to them. That's not the LOD you're
talking about.
[snip again]
> You're just not seeing the big picture. You're looking at Quake 3
> like the "world" is seprate from the curves. It is not. Why does
> everyone say "well you could do it on the curves... but not the world"
> They're PART of the world! Obviosuly, you can't LOD a CUBE. But
> they'r eusing just as many curves as they are cubes in Quake 3 in the
> world... Realtime world LOD clearly would help Quake 3 out.
The simple fact of the matter is the technology isn't there yet. id
could implement real-time world LOD in Quake 3, but you'd be waiting two
or three more years for it that way.
Josh
Freon
news:36df1d42...@news.sprint.ca...
large
>>% of the people who bought Quake1 and 2 do play multiplayer.. Get it?
>>Besides, they only have to sell about 10,000 copies to break even.. Gee
>>that is gonna be tough. heh.
>
>pointing the finger at you, I've heard it many times before), but it's
>utter tripe. Even at an unheard of profit margin of $40 a unit, that
>would only be $40 grand, and that doesn't start to cover two
>employee's salaries. They would be using money they made off of sales
>of Quake and the Quake Engine to cover the difference.
The 10,000 copies comes from an Interview with one of the Quake3
programmers. I think it was Brian Hook but I cant remember for sure. It
was also the same interview he said if Quake3 doesnt work out, they might
try Doom2000.
--
Freon
m | b at mocc com
Grue
>Do you have a 3D accelerator? Judging from your post, I dont think you do.
>Unreal software mode _looks_ ok, but nowhere near what accelerated mode
>looks like.. Then performance wise, it is MUCH slower.
Well you'd be wrong. I DO. Voodoo 1.
What specifically is diffrent? Haven't played it in so long, I
forget. But I do remember that the walls have a sort of bilinear
filtering to smooth them out, there's colored lighting... the two main
important things. I think I recall it lacking mirrored surfaces.
Well good riddance to those... the objects weren't mirrored
properly... the bottom of the mirror image didn't touch the bottom of
the charactar (must have been some damn thick glass between the mirror
and the charactar) and the objects didn't have polygons on the bottom,
so you could see through them. On top of that, the mirrors reflected
too perfectly. So they didn't really work as a beleiveable floor.
(and for some reason they were slippery too)
As for much slower... that may be so. I don't recall the exact
difrence in framerate. But much slower is better than not being able
to run it at all. I'm not saying don't support hardware acceleration
at all.
>He is giving up on software rendering becuase almost all of his target
>market uses an accelerator.
And his target market is obviously hardcore gamers that play online
games. A small fraction of the game buying populace. Not a smar
business move.
>Also, anyone who has bought a new computer within the last year most likely
>has an accelerator...
Yeah, and it's probably a crappy one. A buddy of mine, fairly
computer saavy, I might add, recently bought a system, and the 3d card
he got with it came with 2 megs of texture ram. So every game that
runs on it, (and that's nto many) looks as blurry as Goldeneye on the
N64.
So he's already gotta upgrade his card.
>does not mean they are hardcore gamers.. Infact, you arent a "hardcore
>gamer" if you are still using a low end system anyway.
You can be a hardcore gamer and play _no_ PC based games. There are
these magical things called consoles... they play these things called
GAMES. They're magical too.
Grue
>>You're fucking crazy if you haven't played at least that and The
>>Curse of Monkey Island. I wasn't a big adventure game fan myself
>>before these two beautys (and maybe Full Throttle) came along.
>
>My only problem with adventure games is that once you beat it, it's over.
Well that's a sad fact of life... there's no real way around that.
Of course, how many times have you gone back to play single player
Quake? Not many I'll wager. Multiplayer obivously lengthens the life
of a lot of titles that might not be played much otherwise.
That said... Grim Fandango lasted me TWO weeks! Two weeks of
absolutely perfect single player game. No action game can match that.
Monkey Island lasted slightly less than that.
Of course, Zelda has lasted me since before December... I _sill_
haven't beaten it. (Granted, I don't play it every day... but...)
Anyhow... single player action games generally get played through once
too. Metal Gear Solid for example. Not much point in playing it
twice.
Seems the more plot a game has, the fewer times though you can play
it...
>game like Q2 or SMAC you can play over, and over, and over, etc. Grim Fandango
>at least _looks_ interesting. Come on, bargain bin.
Bargain bin?! Blasphemy! Grim Fandango should _never_ be relegated
to the bargain bin! Take it off the shelves first!
But seriously. The game's worth every penny, every bit as much as
Quake 2 was because of it's multiplayer. $45 for two weeks of
gameplay ain't bad for a single player game. Course, that assumes you
don't cheat at the game (much).
Freon
>"Freon" <S...@signature.com> wrote:
>>Do you have a 3D accelerator? Judging from your post, I dont think you
do.
>>Unreal software mode _looks_ ok, but nowhere near what accelerated mode
>>looks like.. Then performance wise, it is MUCH slower.
>
Well no wonder you are upset over things like this.. A 3 year old 3D
accelerator just aint gonna cut it anymore. What system are you running
that old thing in?
>>He is giving up on software rendering becuase almost all of his target
>>market uses an accelerator.
>
>And his target market is obviously hardcore gamers that play online
>games. A small fraction of the game buying populace. Not a smar
>business move.
Who are you to tell them what is smart or not?
A large fraction of their customers play multiplayer Quake1 and 2. Why
should they give a rats ass about the rest of the game buying populace?
>>Also, anyone who has bought a new computer within the last year most
likely
>>has an accelerator...
>
>Yeah, and it's probably a crappy one. A buddy of mine, fairly
>computer saavy, I might add, recently bought a system, and the 3d card
>he got with it came with 2 megs of texture ram. So every game that
>runs on it, (and that's nto many) looks as blurry as Goldeneye on the
>N64.
That is just pure stupidity. If he was even remotely computer saavy, he
would have known there are no recent 3D accelerators with only 2MB RAM.
Hell, 2MB video cards went out of style 3 years ago.
>So he's already gotta upgrade his card.
Already? Thats his fault for buying crap to begin with. If he bought a
recent system, as you say he did, he should have bought one with a TNT.
>>does not mean they are hardcore gamers.. Infact, you arent a "hardcore
>>gamer" if you are still using a low end system anyway.
>
>You can be a hardcore gamer and play _no_ PC based games. There are
>these magical things called consoles... they play these things called
>GAMES. They're magical too.
Does a hardcore console gamer run an Atari 2600? No, they have a PSX or
N64.
If they were running an Atari 2600, they wouldn't be a "hardcore gamer."
Grue
>Grue wrote:
>>
>> andr...@rocketmail.com (Andreas) wrote:
>> >On Sat, 27 Feb 1999 06:12:32 GMT, gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >>If this is true, then it sound acceptable. Though I'd have expected
>> >>more from Mr. Carmack. Other companies have released games with
>> >>realtime LOD, (flight sims) and Shiny's gonna be releasing Messiah
>> >>soon, and it will eature realtime LOD. I thought Mr. Carmack was at
>> >>the top of the optimization pile, but I guess he's being pushed off.
>> >
>> >I know that Messiah does real-time LOD on it's models (based on
>> >distance and quality settings) but does it really do realtime LOD on
>> >the world itself?
>>
>> I don't know. It was my understanding that it did.
>
>It doesn't. That's why the characters look like cardboard cut-outs in
>the screenshots.
Hmmm? They don't look like cardboard cutouts to me... The baby looks
too bright for the environment, but that's because it's supposed to be
"angelic" probably. The other charactars seem to be shaded properly,
if I recall.
Hm... you know... this game would be the perfect kind of environment
to do some cool glow efects aroudn the charactars. Like a slight red
evil pulsing glow around some of the enemies, and a heavenly white
glow around the cherub.
>The simple fact of the matter is the technology isn't there yet. id
>could implement real-time world LOD in Quake 3, but you'd be waiting two
>or three more years for it that way.
I don't agree. Flight sims already do realtime LOD, and should not be
significantly more difficult to do for the curves in Quake 3.
Maybe the extra computation makes it worthless, because there are far
less potential polygons on a Quake screen than on a landscape whee
you can see to infinity... so the amount of computatiions you save,
would be equal to the extra you have to do to save it. I don't know.
Still, Carmack has some silly ideas of what's good to support and
what's not... He thinks 3D sound is worthless, when it would help to
make the game more immersive... that's why they're doing it in true
3D, isn't it? And he thinks force feedback is absolutely worthless.
(he said both in the voice interview that was released on the net)
Force feedback worthless? Crazy. If I was playing a flight sim, or
driving game, I'd definitely want force feedback. Should he support
it in Quake 3? Probably not. But to say it's worhtless... Anyhow...
if there were a decent 3D input device other than the mouse to use in
FP games, then it would be great if that device supported force
feedback.
Grue
>That is just pure stupidity. If he was even remotely computer saavy, he
>would have known there are no recent 3D accelerators with only 2MB RAM.
>Hell, 2MB video cards went out of style 3 years ago.
There are so many 3d card names out there, it's hard to tell what's
got what hardware. I'm pretty sure the system specs didn't specify
exactly how much ram the card had.
>>So he's already gotta upgrade his card.
>
>Already? Thats his fault for buying crap to begin with. If he bought a
>recent system, as you say he did, he should have bought one with a TNT.
They don't sell systems with TNTs to my knowedge in most computer
stores. They bundle certain video cards with certain systems, and
that depends on politics, not which card is really the best.
As for the hardcore gamer remark...
I was saying I have a CONSOLE. I don't have to have a high end PC to
be a hardcore gamer, I can be a hardcore gamer if I own a high end
console... which you just verified.
Paul Campbell
> >I don't see why these companies STILL feel the need to push the
> >hardware so much.
>
> For the same reason that the cotton gin and the digital watch were such big
> hits. Technological progress RULES.
>
> > The MAJORITY of people who buy games aren't
> >hardcore gamers who'll uograde every six months.
No but the majority of the multi-player FPS crowd are and thisis Ids core target
audience for Q3a indeed I dont think any game
ever released has been more squarely aimed at hardcore gamers.
>
>
> I have long clung to the belief that John Carmack et.al. don't care at all
> about those who buy Compaqs and Gateways and instead care about the hard-core
> bad-ass FPS gamers who put them on top in the first place. And it is precisely
> this attitude that makes me an id supporter.
We had all these aguments just before quake came out then the same
ones again just before quake 2.
Ids games tend to be targeted at the around the 70-90% area of the
peformance curve - i.e. youl need a "good" machine but not an
amazing one. Neither quake nor quake 2 was the absolute most thirsty
game when it was released as it was better optimised than competing
offerings and I expect the same from Q3.
My guess is that P2-300 + V2/TNT will give good gameplay but with
hardcore fps multiplayer freaks like myself needing more like
P2-450+ with SLI/V3.
Paul C
UK.
Paul Campbell
> Get a goddamn job and quit bitching. If you don't want to upgrade then don't
> expect to play cutting-edge games. Computers and computer parts are so CHEAP
> now. It amazes me that people bitch about having to drop a couple hundred on a
> new processor and a 3d card. Go back about 5 years and see how much a high-end
> processor would've run you... don't bother with 3d accelerators, they didn't
> really exist...
Exactly, four years ago people were shelling out $250 for 2D only video cardsto
get a 10% fps boost. Top of the range 3d accelerators are now no more
expensive than good 2d only cards were a year ago so you not really playing
any more at all to upgrade.
Also 3d accelerators have help to ease the burden of upgrading CPUs as you
rarely need the absolute best CPU but rather an upper-mid. So: a midrange
CPU plus a good accelerator is now cheaper than a top of the range CPU
was say 2 years ago.
Upgrading is now cheaper than ever and (thanks mainly to 3d cards)
we are getting much better performance increments with each upgrade.
FFS take a look at the difference in visual quality between say half-life
and doom and doom was only five years or so ago.
Paul C
UK.
fongyee long
Come on, give them a break. They have been working hard to deliver
great gameplay plus eye candy.
Would you have gotten Unreal if it looks shitty??? Would anyone play
HalfLife in Software mode? Face it pal, eye-candy does rules and if id
can give good looking game and superb gameplay, I'm not complaining.
Gunslingr3
hardware. I'm pretty sure the system specs didn't specify exactly how much ram
the card had.<<
I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are DOZENS, if not
HUNDREDS of online reviews and benchmark comparisons available on the web. If
you "computer savvy" buddy couldn't find where on the box it said how much ram
the card has, I has serious reservations about how "computer savvy" he is.
If you are going to drop $100-$300 take 30 minutes or an hour to learn a
little bit about what you're buying. Is that too much to ask? Christ, in the
amount of time you've devoted to this thread you could know EXACTLY which card
best suits you, and find a place to buy it cheaply online.
>>They don't sell systems with TNTs to my knowedge in most computer stores.
They bundle certain video cards with certain systems, and that depends on
politics, not which card is really the best.<<
Why is your "computer savvy" friend buying his computer in a store? Does
he not like having money? Why pay that kind of overhead?
Pick up a Computer Shopper next time. You'll find plenty of systems
available out of the box with TNT and V2s.
You still haven't explained WHY you are still bitching since you
misunderstood the .plan file and id's intention is to make the game playable on
old machines like yours.
Gunslinger
Gunslingr3
immersive... that's why they're doing it in true
3D, isn't it? <<
They're using true 3D for level design. Don't you remember the 2 1/2D of
Doom? Don't you remember that you couldn't have a bridge that you could go
under?
Gunslinger
Shrike
>
[mucho snippo]
I give up. You have your recollections of id's plans so ass-backwards
I'm not even going to go over them. Use Blue's tracker and re-read
them all from the last year or so.
>
> Tell me.. why are they bothing with all this extra shit? This is
> deathmatch people. Didn't Romero say "Framerate is god"? Maybe it
> was one of the guys rom 3d Realms. Either way, all these extra
> effects are pretty fucking worhtless if I can't run the game.
So play fucking QuakeWorld or Doom Deathmatch and leave the rest of us
alone... Sheesh.
--
Shrike -IRIX worshipper, Linux dabbler, Windows victim-
`I need Stalin like I need a hole in the head' -Leon Trotsky
Grue
So?
Was Doom a worse game because of it? Hardly. Actually, I'd perfer
playing Doom any day over Quake 1. It's more visually appealing, and
it has more interesting and better balanced weapons.
You don't need curved archways to make a good deathmatch game.
They're WASTING framerate to make a game that looks nicer in a way
that's worthless for deathmatch.
The fog... that's good or deathmatch. The curves... worthless. The
higher polygon player models... worthless. Instead of higher polygon
models, give me more accurate collision detection with the player and
the bullet. Anyone who says they want higher polygon models is an
idiot. 5 more frames a second... now that's worth something. I'd be
satisfied with Quake 1 level models in Deathmatch if it meant that
when there were 10 guys on the screen at once the game didn't slow
down.
Grue
>Um... so what? Q3 will be a great game just like Q2 is a great game.
>Come on, give them a break. They have been working hard to deliver
>great gameplay plus eye candy.
>
>Would you have gotten Unreal if it looks shitty???
Obviosuly not, because then it wouldn't have ANYTHING good going for
it. At the very least the visuals wowed me until the third level or
so.
>Would anyone play HalfLife in Software mode?
Sure, why not? It looks great in software mode. I'm sure a lot of
people thta bought the game didn't have decent 3d accelerators, but
had high end systems.
What are you gonna use after hours on the lan at work if you're
working at a company that doesn't buy 3D accelerators for their PC's?
Ever think of that? There's a whole slew of gamers that will get
screwed over because they don't have the option of getting a 3d card.
Guess Quake 3 isn't going ot be a favorite after-work passtime...
>Face it pal, eye-candy does rules and if id
>can give good looking game and superb gameplay, I'm not complaining.
Well we alreayd know they're not gonna guve us superb gameplay...
their game is multiplayer only. It will never be a contender for best
game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
Grue
>>>There are so many 3d card names out there, it's hard to tell what's got what
>hardware. I'm pretty sure the system specs didn't specify exactly how much ram
>the card had.<<
>
> I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are DOZENS, if not
>HUNDREDS of online reviews and benchmark comparisons available on the web. If
>you "computer savvy" buddy couldn't find where on the box it said how much ram
>the card has, I has serious reservations about how "computer savvy" he is.
Dumbass, he bought a PRE-made system at a store. Now, I told him not
to do that, but he insists it was cheaper than buying seprate
components. I woudn't be surprised if it is, but at least you can
select the very best components.
> Pick up a Computer Shopper next time. You'll find plenty of systems
>available out of the box with TNT and V2s.
Buy though mail order? No thanks. I'm sure he didn't buy mail order
for the same reason I wouldn't. Don't want to wait for the system,
can't look at the system to see if it's got a good look/feel to it.
Store bought componenents you can actually examine.
Shrike
>
> Well we alreayd know they're not gonna guve us superb gameplay...
> their game is multiplayer only. It will never be a contender for best
> game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
I guess that explains why chess and checkers have lasted for
centuries.
A single player game lasts months at its best. A multiplayer game
lasts forever.
Freon
>"Freon" <S...@signature.com> wrote:
>>That is just pure stupidity. If he was even remotely computer saavy, he
>>would have known there are no recent 3D accelerators with only 2MB RAM.
>>Hell, 2MB video cards went out of style 3 years ago.
>
>got what hardware. I'm pretty sure the system specs didn't specify
>exactly how much ram the card had.
You said he was computer saavy.. Guess not.
There are only a couple 3D chipsets out there anyway.
3dfx Voodoo2 and Nvidia TNT are the best. 3dfx Banshee and S3 Savage3D are
next.
All others are pretty much junk. His computer probably has a piece of crap
ATi Rage Pro.
All of the above chipsets have new versions coming out within the next
couple months so they will still be the best to choose from. Except now it
will be easier cause there will be fewer.
Voodoo2 and Banshee are being replaced by Voodoo3. TNT is being replaced by
TNT2.
Savage4 is not as good as the others, so toss it out.. ATi comes into the
picture with the new Rage.
There you have it. Voodoo3, TNT2 or ATi Rage Fury.
>>>So he's already gotta upgrade his card.
>>
>>Already? Thats his fault for buying crap to begin with. If he bought a
>>recent system, as you say he did, he should have bought one with a TNT.
>
>They don't sell systems with TNTs to my knowedge in most computer
>stores. They bundle certain video cards with certain systems, and
>that depends on politics, not which card is really the best.
Heh.. Well, now I know just how computer saavy your friend isnt..
People who buy their computers in stores (mass market stuff, not mom&pop) do
not generally fit into the "hardcore gamer" catagory.. They barely make it
into the gamer catagory.
Like I said before, if he was even remotely computer saavy, he would have
known.
He also would have bought a real computer.
>As for the hardcore gamer remark...
>
>I was saying I have a CONSOLE. I don't have to have a high end PC to
>be a hardcore gamer, I can be a hardcore gamer if I own a high end
>console... which you just verified.
Guess what? That has nothing to do with PC games..
Besides, a console is anything but hardcore.. Hehe.. Are you really hardcore
if you have a memory card? All console gamers are the same.. There is only
one level of console.
My comparison was not validating console gamers being hardcore gamers..
Rygar1
wrote:
>On Sun, 28 Feb 1999 11:54:21 GMT, ry...@email.com (Rygar1) wrote:
>>I don't know where this 10,000 copies bit came up from (I'm not
>>pointing the finger at you, I've heard it many times before), but it's
>>utter tripe. Even at an unheard of profit margin of $40 a unit, that
>>would only be $40 grand,
>
>Your math is off. 40x10,000=400,000
LOL!!! Stupid midterms, fried my brain. Um... hey look, over there!
<runs away>
JSpectre07
>game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
>
... "in my opinion."
Grue
>> It will never be a contender for best
>>game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
>>
>
>... "in my opinion."
No, that's a fact.
Look at the current game that hold the title... Zelda. And look at
the one that previously held it... Mario 64.
I'm talking Next Generation's best game of all time list here... I
don't think anyone can say their list was poorly constucted... PC
Gamer's besot PC game of all time list though... they gave Jedi
Knight top PC game of all time, didn't they? Fools.
Anyhow... back to my point. A multiplayer only game could never take
the title away from Zelda. It would have to be another game which has
very strong single player. A multiplayer only game after all, only
reaches a small audience. Any contender for greatest game of all time
would have to reach a large audience.
And I don't even wanna hear that Zelda's not deserving of the title.
Zelda is the only game ever to outsell the best selling movies at the
box office. There's a reason for that. There's also a reason that it
was pre-ordered the most any game has ever been.
TuKuuL
Games like this can get even better. Never say never.
TuKuuL
>> It will never be a contender for best
>>game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
>>
>
>... "in my opinion."
>
JSpectre07
>
>Look at the current game that hold the title... Zelda.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ha ha... >gasp<
Freon
>jspec...@aol.comnospam (JSpectre07) wrote:
>>> It will never be a contender for best
>>>game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
>>>
>>
>>... "in my opinion."
>
>
>the one that previously held it... Mario 64.
>
>I'm talking Next Generation's best game of all time list here... I
>don't think anyone can say their list was poorly constucted... PC
>Gamer's besot PC game of all time list though... they gave Jedi
>Knight top PC game of all time, didn't they? Fools.
Next Gen? Hehe.. They are a console convert, of course they will pick a
console game. Besides, how could they ignore a game that has sold that many
millions?
Did Zelda rank #1 in everyones list? Nope.
I think Zelda is pretty cool.. But not best game of all time.
PC Gamer is a foolish magazine and Jedi Knight was a poor choice.
It was not rated #1 in the Readers Top 50 though. Starcraft was rated #1
followed by, Warcraft2, Quake2, then Jedi Knight.
>Anyhow... back to my point. A multiplayer only game could never take
>the title away from Zelda. It would have to be another game which has
>very strong single player. A multiplayer only game after all, only
>reaches a small audience. Any contender for greatest game of all time
>would have to reach a large audience.
Sure, a multiplayer only game will never sell as many copies as something
like Zelda. Who the hell cares? Regardless of how many copies Zelda sells,
people will play it and then go back to playing their friends in Tekken3
(PSX of course) or 007 or one of the other fighting games available.
Why? Because multiplayer is fun.
>And I don't even wanna hear that Zelda's not deserving of the title.
>
>Zelda is the only game ever to outsell the best selling movies at the
>box office. There's a reason for that. There's also a reason that it
>was pre-ordered the most any game has ever been.
Umm nice bit of twisting of facts on that issue. Outsell is being misused.
Zelda costs about $55.. Average movie costs about $7.
Zelda sales were in Japan and the US (and probably other countries). Bug's
Life was just in the US.
Zelda sales made $150M from Nov 20 to the end of the year. $150M = ~2.7M
copies.
Bug's Life made $114M in the same amount of time. $114M = ~16M copies (err
views).
Sure, Zelda made more money.. but it costs a lot more to buy and was sold in
a lot more places. More people didnt buy it though. Zelda has to sell many
millions more copies to match the movies.
I bet one of the only reason Zelda is selling so well is because of the lack
of good N64 games anyway. Release a good game for N64 and everyone is gonna
buy it. That's why there were so many pre-orders.
Besides, FFVIII sold 2.21 million copies in it's first day in Japan. Thats
equal to $150M US.
Zelda only sold ~386,000 copies it's first week in Japan.
Grue
>Grue wrote:
>>
>
>> Well we alreayd know they're not gonna guve us superb gameplay...
>> game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
>
>centuries.
>
>A single player game lasts months at its best. A multiplayer game
>lasts forever.
Funny... I don't see many Doom deathmatches going on these days...
Grue
>Grue wrote:
>>
>
>> Well we alreayd know they're not gonna guve us superb gameplay...
>> their game is multiplayer only. It will never be a contender for best
>> game ever. No multiplayer only game will.
>
>I guess that explains why chess and checkers have lasted for
>centuries.
>
>A single player game lasts months at its best. A multiplayer game
>lasts forever.
Come to think of it... I don't see anyone playing PONG either.
Grue
>>No, that's a fact.
>>
>>Look at the current game that hold the title... Zelda.
>
Ha ha haa.. ha....?
I don't see what's so funny. What game do YOU think deserves the
title of best game of all time? The only other game I think could be
worthy of that title would be Metal Gear Solid.
There aren't a lot of PC games I'd consider awarding such a title.
To be worthy of the title, the game has to:
A) Push the boudaries of it's genre incredibly far.
B) Do almost every aspect flawlessly.
Zelda does this. You won't find a 3D action RPG out there that has
better control, sound, puzzles, or visuals. It's storyline isn't very
deep, but it's not bad by any means. You meet interesting charactars,
and visit interesting places.
Metal Gear Solid does this. It's sort of a 3D action spy/thriller or
something. Even has some RPG like elements. It's got great music,
visuals, interesting charactars, great voiceovers, and an incredible
storyline. And the controls are spot-on for the most part.
Grim Fandango is the only PC game I can think of that also would be
worthy of this title. It has good controls, great charactars, great
humor, great visuals, great music/sound, great puzzles, and a story
that's even better than Metal Gear Solids.
But compare Quake 2 for example. It's only got above average music,
above average sound, a really poor plotline, and slow, repetitive
action. Halfway though the game, you're not gonna scream "Oh my god!
That kicks so much ass..." Any game worth of the title best game ever
has to do that! If you're bored halfway through the game, then
somethings seriously wrong with the game. Even Carmack said in his
interview that they don't expect 90% of players to even bother
completing the single player levels. As for multiplayer... you still
ahve the realtively uninteresting sound, the rather bland graphics...
The controls are pretty good, but nothing the write home about. The
weapon balancing is good, but not incredible, and the map designs are
good, but not incredible.
Care to offer a game you think deserves the title best game ever?
Describe what you think it did so very right.
Grue
>Did Zelda rank #1 in everyones list? Nope.
>I think Zelda is pretty cool.. But not best game of all time.
>PC Gamer is a foolish magazine and Jedi Knight was a poor choice.
>It was not rated #1 in the Readers Top 50 though. Starcraft was rated #1
>followed by, Warcraft2, Quake2, then Jedi Knight.
I could never rate Starcraft as number one... The game is cool, and
the graphics are nice, (but not "holy shit!" incredible) but the music
is boring, the sounds are only average, and the gameplay is poorly
balanced. Ever tried to win multiplayer with the terrans?
I'd actually rate Warcraft II over Starcraft. It was very well
balanced, had just as good of graphics, better music, and on top of
that, it was funny.
But I wouldn't call it the number 1 game of all time... not even
close.
>Sure, a multiplayer only game will never sell as many copies as something
>like Zelda. Who the hell cares?
The publishers? :)
>Regardless of how many copies Zelda sells,
>people will play it and then go back to playing their friends in Tekken3
>(PSX of course) or 007 or one of the other fighting games available.
>Why? Because multiplayer is fun.
Yes, it is. But it's not going to give you that incredible feeling
that Zelda gives you when you first walk out onto Hyrule Feild, or
when you see the kick ass room shadow link resides in in the water
temple, or when you walk into goron city...
>Umm nice bit of twisting of facts on that issue. Outsell is being misused.
>Zelda costs about $55.. Average movie costs about $7.
>Zelda sales were in Japan and the US (and probably other countries). Bug's
>Life was just in the US.
>Zelda sales made $150M from Nov 20 to the end of the year. $150M = ~2.7M
>copies.
>Bug's Life made $114M in the same amount of time. $114M = ~16M copies (err
>views).
>Sure, Zelda made more money.. but it costs a lot more to buy and was sold in
>a lot more places. More people didnt buy it though. Zelda has to sell many
>millions more copies to match the movies.
It's true that it wasn't played by as many people as watched a bug's
life, but the name of the game is making the most profit, not reaching
the largest audience.
>I bet one of the only reason Zelda is selling so well is because of the lack
>of good N64 games anyway. Release a good game for N64 and everyone is gonna
>buy it. That's why there were so many pre-orders.
I don't buy that... (Heh heh)
Zelda is one of those games everyone was waiting for. Just like
they're waiting for a new Mario game. It's popularity has notihng to
do with the lack of N64 games out there. There were hundreds of games
on the NES, and Zelda sold great on that system too.
You're assuming people only have $X to spend on games, and they spend
that much every year, so if more games come out, then each game will
sell less. Well, I say that's bullshit. I'd buy 10x as many PC games
if there were 10x as many AAA titles. I buy every game that I like,
but unfortunately, there aren't a hell of a lot that I like. Sin..
Blood 2... wastes of money. They didn't sell, not because there were
too many first person games on the market... They didn't sell,
because they SUCKED. Sure, they'd have sold a few more copies if
nobody had played a FP game in a year... but it wouldn't have turned
them into 2 million copy selling titles.
>Besides, FFVIII sold 2.21 million copies in it's first day in Japan. Thats
>equal to $150M US.
>Zelda only sold ~386,000 copies it's first week in Japan.
Well that's because they didn't have enough copies duplicated! :) And
it's also because the N64 isn't very popular in Japan compared to the
Playstation... you have to own the system to buy games for it.
mlwilliams
> news:36df1d42...@news.sprint.ca...
>
> >I don't know where this 10,000 copies bit came up from (I'm not
> >pointing the finger at you, I've heard it many times before), but it's
> >utter tripe. Even at an unheard of profit margin of $40 a unit, that
> >employee's salaries. They would be using money they made off of sales
> >of Quake and the Quake Engine to cover the difference.
Hmmm ... 10,000 copies with $40 profit/unit looks more like $400,000
than $40,000 to me.... that'd be 2 very well paid programmers would it?
--
Saturnalia
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Station/5676/sat.html
I'm sorry, I can't argue unless you've paid.
Gunslingr3
title away from Zelda. It would have to be another game which has very strong
single player. A multiplayer only game after all, only reaches a small
audience. Any contender for greatest game of all time would have to reach a
large audience.<<
Hey, smart guy, the title "Best Game" is an OPINION, not a fact. YOU
cannot tell ME what I think is the "Best Game".
IMO the "Best Games" are Quake 2 and Nascar 2. Why? Because of the
addictive multiplayer.
Gunslinger
Gunslingr3
A) Push the boudaries of it's genre incredibly far.
B) Do almost every aspect flawlessly.<<
Are you fucking retarded? What position, just short of God, did you assume
to decide what makes a game worthy? I'll say again, the title "Best Game" is
an individual opinion. Regardless of how many share that opinion it does not
make it a fact.
Christ, don't you know the difference?
>>But compare Quake 2 for example. It's only got above average music,<<
Music? Put in any CD you want and it'll play it with the game. Can I do
that with Zelda? (I don't own a console)
>> above average sound, a really poor plotline, and slow, repetitive action.<<
That is why multiplayer is so great. Never, ever, will a game play out the
same way.
>> Halfway though the game, you're not gonna scream "Oh my god! That kicks so
much ass..." Any game worth of the title best game ever has to do that!<<
Either you have a shitty ISP, or perhaps aren't very good at Q2. I've seen
and done some jaw dropping things in CTF.
Gunslinger
Gunslingr3
of
>Doom? Don't you remember that you couldn't have a bridge that you could go
>under?
So?
Was Doom a worse game because of it? Hardly.<<
Can you comprehend the architechtural constraints of 2 1/2D?
You can NOT have one floor above another.
>>Actually, I'd perfer playing Doom any day over Quake 1. It's more visually
appealing,<<
Omigod, I've been trying to explain the benefits of eye candy to Mr. Magoo.
>> and it has more interesting and better balanced weapons.<<
This is your opinion, but what does it have to do with 3D?
Gunslinger
Gunslingr3
Well, Fuckwad (boy namecalling is fun), sounds like your "computer savvy"
friend is anything but.
>>Now, I told him not to do that, but he insists it was cheaper than buying
seprate components. I woudn't be surprised if it is, but at least you can
select the very best components.<<
What good is cheap, if it's not good? Look! I saved X dollars buying this
piece of shit at the store. Now I only have to spend 2X to upgrade it to a
decent computer.
Like I said, tell you "computer savvy" friend to look at Computer Shopper
>>Buy though mail order? No thanks.<<
A fool and his money...
>>I'm sure he didn't buy mail order for the same reason I wouldn't. Don't want
to wait for the system, can't look at the system to see if it's got a good
look/feel to it.<<
Good look/feel? Are you checking to see if it leaks oil?
Can you spot a flaw on a .25 micron die chip?
The most you wait is a week. If that's not worth a few hundred dollars to
you, why the hell are you bitching about buying a $180 video card?
>>Store bought componenents you can actually examine.<<
I "examined" my computer when it arrived. I also was able to "examine" the
extra $300 dollars in my pocket.
You STILL haven't explained why the hell you are complaining since id is
making the game where eye candy can by turned off by Luddites like yourself.
JSpectre07
>title of best game of all time? The only other game I think could be
>worthy of that title would be Metal Gear Solid.
Well, in my OPINION, it would be hard to choose between:
TIE Fighter
Civ 2
Quake 2
Those 3 games have accounted for soooo much of my spare time. Give me a few
more months with SMAC and I'll probably put it up there too.
>There aren't a lot of PC games I'd consider awarding such a title.
There aren't a lot of console games I'd _play_. Admittedly, Zelda might be one
of them, but the vast majority of console games are total crap. Area 51,
anybody?
>To be worthy of the title, the game has to:
>
>A) Push the boudaries of it's genre incredibly far.
>B) Do almost every aspect flawlessly.
Hmmm... I'm sorry, I must have missed the announcement from God about what is
necessary to be worthy.
>But compare Quake 2 for example. It's only got above average music,
>above average sound, a really poor plotline, and slow, repetitive
>action. Halfway though the game, you're not gonna scream "Oh my god!
>That kicks so much ass..." Any game worth of the title best game ever
>has to do that!
>double sigh< Jump off the top of blue base in the Smelter and feed somebody a
Quad rail before you hit the ground. I bet you'll yell "OH MY GOD THAT KICKS
ASS!" I know I do.
>Even Carmack said in his
>interview that they don't expect 90% of players to even bother
>completing the single player levels.
BECAUSE IT IS A MULTIPLAYER GAME. If you get your thrills out of beating a
computer, go for it. I prefer to outwit and outshoot humans.
> As for multiplayer... you still
>ahve the realtively uninteresting sound, the rather bland graphics...
Ah, now I see, we're dealing with an irrational lunatic. Quake2 has "rather
bland graphics"? I'll just remove myself from this thread, as arguing with you
is pointless.
Freon
>"Freon" <S...@signature.com> wrote:
>>Regardless of how many copies Zelda sells,
>>people will play it and then go back to playing their friends in Tekken3
>>(PSX of course) or 007 or one of the other fighting games available.
>>Why? Because multiplayer is fun.
>
>Yes, it is. But it's not going to give you that incredible feeling
>that Zelda gives you when you first walk out onto Hyrule Feild, or
>when you see the kick ass room shadow link resides in in the water
>temple, or when you walk into goron city...
Incredible feeling? Good god man.. get out sometime.
I got no incredible feelings from Zelda on the N64. Even on my PC at
800x600 res. it was not that hot. It looks nice but nothing incredible. In
fact, there was a lot of ugly sprite usage and poor texture quality in
Zelda.
It looks great compared to other N64 games.
Of course you cant compare it to any PC game because you are using a 4 year
old 3D accelerator.
>>I bet one of the only reason Zelda is selling so well is because of the
lack
>>of good N64 games anyway. Release a good game for N64 and everyone is
gonna
>>buy it. That's why there were so many pre-orders.
>
>I don't buy that... (Heh heh)
Yeah.. ok.
>Zelda is one of those games everyone was waiting for. Just like
>they're waiting for a new Mario game. It's popularity has notihng to
>do with the lack of N64 games out there. There were hundreds of games
>on the NES, and Zelda sold great on that system too.
hundreds of games.. not hundreds of good games
The majority of Nintendo games are crap. Kid stuff.. Boring.
>You're assuming people only have $X to spend on games, and they spend
>that much every year, so if more games come out, then each game will
>sell less. Well, I say that's bullshit. I'd buy 10x as many PC games
>if there were 10x as many AAA titles. I buy every game that I like,
>but unfortunately, there aren't a hell of a lot that I like. Sin..
>Blood 2... wastes of money. They didn't sell, not because there were
>too many first person games on the market... They didn't sell,
>because they SUCKED. Sure, they'd have sold a few more copies if
>nobody had played a FP game in a year... but it wouldn't have turned
>them into 2 million copy selling titles.
Im not assuming anything about X$ to spend. There is a LACK OF GOOD N64
GAMES..
When one hot title comes along, everyone buys the thing.
I have been pretty much unhappy with the N64. PSX is great.
>>Besides, FFVIII sold 2.21 million copies in it's first day in Japan. Thats
>>equal to $150M US.
>>Zelda only sold ~386,000 copies it's first week in Japan.
>
>Well that's because they didn't have enough copies duplicated! :) And
>it's also because the N64 isn't very popular in Japan compared to the
>Playstation... you have to own the system to buy games for it.
Doesnt matter how many copies they had duplicated.. FFVIII sold more copies
in the first day than Zelda did in 3 months.
Joe
>I don't see what's so funny. What game do YOU think deserves the
>title of best game of all time? The only other game I think could be
>worthy of that title would be Metal Gear Solid.
PTHHTTH! Jesus, don't say such funny stuff in the morning, you'll get
coffee all over my keyboard!
>Zelda does this. You won't find a 3D action RPG out there that has
>better control,
Heretic 2 has a thousand times better control. That's the game that
proved you can't beat the mouse, even in third-person.
>Metal Gear Solid does this.
It had the potential to be great, but instead of really pushing the
innovative (i.e., sneaking) style of gameplay they wussed out and fell
back on the tired old boss-after-boss-after-boss cliche. Oh yeah, I
forgot - you love cliches and hate innovative things like the movie
BladeRunner. Um, sorry, but that disqualifies you from even voting on
best game of all time, let alone proclaiming your own opinion as The
Truth.
Joe
Grue
>>>To be worthy of the title, the game has to:
>
>A) Push the boudaries of it's genre incredibly far.
>B) Do almost every aspect flawlessly.<<
>
>to decide what makes a game worthy?
Uh... Excuse me?
>I'll say again, the title "Best Game" is an individual opinion.
And if that opinion isn't based on actual analysis, then it's not
worth crap.
That's why people listen to Siskel and Ebert's opinions of movies, and
not yours.
The rules I listed above are pretty straightforward. They're like
saying "This TV has more features" and "This TV has a clearer
picture". Do you really think someone who says their 10" b/w TV is
the best TV ever because they're a huge fan of Zenith is worth
listening to?
Any title of "best game ever" has to have some rules associated with
it, otherwise, a team of people could never decide on which game
deserves that honors.
If a game doesn't do the above, then nobody with an open critical mind
would even consider the title as a best game ever. You can't have a
good game if it has poor control, and you can't have an incredible
game if it does exactly the same things as every other game in it's
category. That's called a clone. You know.. "It's a clone of doom".
That means it didn't push the Genre any, and it's only mediocre.
>Regardless of how many share that opinion it does not
>make it a fact.
> Christ, don't you know the difference?
I didn't say it was a "fact". I said it was awarded the title of best
game ever. Quake 2 has never been awarded the title of best game ever
by any reputable source, ie, a panel of reputable game critics.
>>>But compare Quake 2 for example. It's only got above average music,<<
>
> Music? Put in any CD you want and it'll play it with the game. Can I do
>that with Zelda? (I don't own a console)
If that's the pinnacle off a good game... being able to play your own
music in it... you don't have a clue.
If you're playing a game that's a contender for best game ever, you
shouldn't even be considering playing your own music. A game is
supposed to stand on it's OWN merit, not on the merit of your Nine
Inch Nails cd. I love to hear people who love Quake say in response
to "the game sucks", "you can make a mod to fix it". Oh... I get
it... it shoudl get five stars, even if the textures were drawn by a
five year old, because someone can make BETTEr textures for it. So it
must be infinitely good because it can be modified to be better. Hm,
guess if someone doesn't like the Mona Lisa, you could always paint
over it. Guess it must be the best painting ever.
>>> Halfway though the game, you're not gonna scream "Oh my god! That kicks so
>much ass..." Any game worth of the title best game ever has to do that!<<
>
> Either you have a shitty ISP, or perhaps aren't very good at Q2. I've seen
>and done some jaw dropping things in CTF.
So? You're talking about cool things the players did, not cool things
the designers did.
And I'm sure none of those cool things keeps you in awe for more than
a moment. I spent several minutes revelling in the awe of Hyrule
Field the first time I went out onto it, and anyone who's played the
game would probably agree with me there.
If you see a guy do a rocketjump, a backflip, and then shoot you
through the skull with a rail gun while in the air, and then shoot his
grappling hook into the ceiling and swing away just before he lands
in the lava below him, that's only gonna inpress you for a couple
seconds, max, and that's being impressed with his skill, not with the
game's design.
Grue
>>I don't see what's so funny. What game do YOU think deserves the
>>title of best game of all time? The only other game I think could be
>>worthy of that title would be Metal Gear Solid.
>
>
>TIE Fighter
>Civ 2
>Quake 2
>
>Those 3 games have accounted for soooo much of my spare time. Give me a few
>more months with SMAC and I'll probably put it up there too.
I don't think how much you play a game should be how you judge it's
greatness. In that case, perhaps pac-man or defender should be the
gratest games of all time. People used to play those for over 24
hours straight.
I know I wouldn't call Mario Kart the best game of all time... and
I've played that probably more hours multiplayer than any other game
ever... But that doesn't mean there aren't flaws with the game. The
game sometimes has a low framerate, and sometime the cheating which
allows other players to catch up really easily gets annoying.
>>There aren't a lot of PC games I'd consider awarding such a title.
>
>There aren't a lot of console games I'd _play_. Admittedly, Zelda might be one
>of them, but the vast majority of console games are total crap. Area 51,
>anybody?
It's true that the vast majority of console games suck. But choosing
Area 51... that's a low blow. That have that on PC too you know. I
agree, it's a piece of shit.
But just cause there's a lot of titles that suck on the consoles
doesn't mean there aren't thousands more for the PC that suck. And it
also doesn't mean there isn't a good selection of good titles for
consoles.
Can you name a better jetski game for the PC (or hell, the arcade)
than Waverace 64?
>>To be worthy of the title, the game has to:
>>
>>A) Push the boudaries of it's genre incredibly far.
>>B) Do almost every aspect flawlessly.
>
>Hmmm... I'm sorry, I must have missed the announcement from God about what is
>necessary to be worthy.
Mind explaining WHY you think those aren't good criteria to judge a
game by? If you don't use a set of rules to judge such things by,
then they're just hot air. People use statisitcs to judge the best
basketball players by. They don't just pick one at random because
they like to watch him play.
>>double sigh< Jump off the top of blue base in the Smelter and feed somebody a
>Quad rail before you hit the ground. I bet you'll yell "OH MY GOD THAT KICKS
>ASS!" I know I do.
That's because of something _you_ did, not because of something the
game did. What do you think the guy who you railed said? I'll bet he
said "Goddamnit!"
>>Even Carmack said in his
>>interview that they don't expect 90% of players to even bother
>>completing the single player levels.
>
>BECAUSE IT IS A MULTIPLAYER GAME. If you get your thrills out of beating a
>computer, go for it. I prefer to outwit and outshoot humans.
I was, and he was, talking about single player games. Ie, Quake 2.
Not Quake 3.
The only reason to expect that a player wouldn't finish the levels is
if the game is POORLY DESIGNED. Do you think Shigeru Miamoto (the
genius Nintendo game designer) goes around saying "well, people are
tired of Mario 64 by the end... I guess we can't do anything about
that, it's just a fact of life."
No!
He goes back, and he adds stuff to the game to keep it fresh through
the whole game.
...
Players not finishing a game is a symptom that the game needs some
redesign, not a fact of life.
Anyone who says otherwise is either retarded, or lying.
>Ah, now I see, we're dealing with an irrational lunatic. Quake2 has "rather
>bland graphics"? I'll just remove myself from this thread, as arguing with you
>is pointless.
Yes, it does. And I will qualify that statement.
The bright areas of the game are only 50% bright, and there aren't
very many dark areas. The game completely lacks any sort of contrast.
In addition, the general look of the levels is virtually identical
from beginning to end. They have little variation. The textures used
are all pretty much brown pitted metal.
Half-life has more variation. More... but still not enough. Too few
textures, which are reused all over the place. And level designs
which end up lacking variation.
Ask yourself... is it particularly easy to know where I am on this
level, or am I confused about where I am, because everything looks the
same. Try the prison deathmatch level in Quake 2. Garanteed
confusion. All hallways look nearly identical.
Also, the monsters in Quake 2 weren't particularly inspiring. Typical
cliche'd half-metal half organic creatures that look like robots. The
charactars also had no charactar. You can't say that one creature was
particularly more angry/frightended than another. They all compeltely
lacked any emotion. Contrast this with Abe's Oddessy, where each
charactar is extremely unique, and has a very distinct personality and
AI.
Grue
> Good look/feel? Are you checking to see if it leaks oil?
> Can you spot a flaw on a .25 micron die chip?
> The most you wait is a week. If that's not worth a few hundred dollars to
>you, why the hell are you bitching about buying a $180 video card?
And what about the return policy? Can't really go to the store and
make sure that you get your money in hand in exchange for the damaged
product.
And I happen to like choosing what my computer case looks like, and
finding a CDROM that has a good automatic tray closer as opposed to a
cheap plastic one that just slides in and out. Can't easily check
that stuff via mail order. Takes too long to return if it's a cheap
peice of crap that doesn't work with your system.
Grue
>Was Doom a worse game because of it? Hardly.<<
>
> Can you comprehend the architechtural constraints of 2 1/2D?
> You can NOT have one floor above another.
Yes, I CAN. And BIG FUCKING DEAL!
Doom was a great game, even with that limitation. Who cares if there
is a guy in a tunnel below you, if you can't see him? And with
environments as unrealisitc as those in the Quake series, does it
really matter if there's the additional "unrealisticness" of no floors
over floors?
Would Quake 1 have been a worse game (than it was) if there were no
floors over floors? Hell no.
>>>Actually, I'd perfer playing Doom any day over Quake 1. It's more visually
>appealing,<<
>
> Omigod, I've been trying to explain the benefits of eye candy to Mr. Magoo.
I like the more colorful style to the artwork. Also, the monsters and
players don't blend into the background to the point that they're hard
to see. While that may be realisitic, I don't like that style.
Also, the weapons in Doom looked cooler. I'd much rather have a
plasma gun than a stupid ass looking lightning gun or chain gun.
Those weapon designs in Quake 1 were fucked up. And the ones in Quake
2... what the hell? It's not enough that the environment is all
brown... they have to make the WEAPONS all brown too?
The charactars were also more interesting in Doom. The revenant and
the spider mastermind were way cooler than ANY of the monsters in
Quake 1 or 2. Hell, all the monsters in doom were cooler than the
ones in Quake 1 and 2. Especially Quake 1.
Grue
>Incredible feeling? Good god man.. get out sometime.
>I got no incredible feelings from Zelda on the N64. Even on my PC at
>800x600 res. it was not that hot. It looks nice but nothing incredible. In
>fact, there was a lot of ugly sprite usage and poor texture quality in
>Zelda.
What, did you play it on the PC? It doesn't surprise me that if you
did you didn't get hte full experience. It also doesn't suprise me
that you grips about the "poor texture quality". Aside from the
textures being low res, which works in the Zelda environment, there
weren't any problems with them. They tiled properly, they looked like
the surface they were trying to convey, they didn't have any ugly
artifacts... Hell, nontendo even went so far as to overlay two
textures on top of eachother in Hyrule feild to icrease the variation
so it wouldn't look like a single texture tiled over and over.
>It looks great compared to other N64 games.
>Of course you cant compare it to any PC game because you are using a 4 year
>old 3D accelerator.
Exacuse me, but I've played games like Unreal on P400's with Voodoo
II, and they don't look signiicantly difrent than they do on my system
other than higher res, and higher framerate.
Unreal has nice visuals. And it's textures are higher res... but that
wouldn't have improved Zelda's look much. The game was DESIGNED to
look good with low res textures.
In fact, it's ironic that with such limitations, Zelda actualy has
more variation in it's areas than Quake 2 has.
>hundreds of games.. not hundreds of good games
>The majority of Nintendo games are crap. Kid stuff.. Boring.
"Kid stuff"... Sheesh.
Obviously you are incapable of looking at a product with an open
mind... which is why you don't like Zelda. You're probably some 16
year old with a "grown up" complex... don't watch cartoons anymore
because you're afraid what others would think. Well, I'm 24, and I
still like "kiddie games" as long as they have a fairly intelligent
style to them. Hell, I thought Freddi Fish was a cool game. Too
simple for someone like myself to solve naturally, but it was fun to
try it. You'd probably look at such a title with disdain. I know
someone who got "Lego Island" as a christmas present, and they reused
to even open the package and look at it. Sure, the game might have
been so simplistic and kiddy that even I would be sickened by it, but
I would have at least looked at it. That someone is obviously a lot
like you.
>Im not assuming anything about X$ to spend. There is a LACK OF GOOD N64
>GAMES..
There are just as many N64 games on sale curently that I would buy as
there are PC games out currently that I would buy.
But I agree.. there is a lack of good N64 games. But there is also a
major lack of good PC games.
>When one hot title comes along, everyone buys the thing.
And they do so on the PC as well.
>I have been pretty much unhappy with the N64. PSX is great.
Because you don't like games that have cartoon charcatars. You're
"too adult" for them.
Heretic
>
>gunsl...@aol.com (Gunslingr3) wrote:
>>Was Doom a worse game because of it? Hardly.<<
>>
>> Can you comprehend the architechtural constraints of 2 1/2D?
>> You can NOT have one floor above another.
>
>Yes, I CAN. And BIG FUCKING DEAL!
>
>Doom was a great game, even with that limitation. Who cares if there
>is a guy in a tunnel below you, if you can't see him? And with
>environments as unrealisitc as those in the Quake series, does it
>really matter if there's the additional "unrealisticness" of no floors
>over floors?
>
I agree with you. And I think even the 2.5D structure of DOOM
is a waste of computing power! We should stick with the 1D
structure of Wolf3D instead.
Freon
>"Freon" <S...@signature.com> wrote:
>>Incredible feeling? Good god man.. get out sometime.
>>I got no incredible feelings from Zelda on the N64. Even on my PC at
>>800x600 res. it was not that hot. It looks nice but nothing incredible.
In
>>fact, there was a lot of ugly sprite usage and poor texture quality in
>>Zelda.
>
>What, did you play it on the PC? It doesn't surprise me that if you
>did you didn't get hte full experience. It also doesn't suprise me
>that you grips about the "poor texture quality".
I played it on both.. It looks better on my PC.
There were no "incredible feelings" about the game.
>>hundreds of games.. not hundreds of good games
>>The majority of Nintendo games are crap. Kid stuff.. Boring.
>
>"Kid stuff"... Sheesh.
>Obviously you are incapable of looking at a product with an open
>mind... which is why you don't like Zelda. You're probably some 16
>year old with a "grown up" complex... don't watch cartoons anymore
>because you're afraid what others would think. Well, I'm 24, and I
>still like "kiddie games" as long as they have a fairly intelligent
>style to them.
Did I say I didnt like Zelda? It is a good game. It's obviously not as
great to me as it is to you.
24? Sorry.. got you by 3 years and I watch cartoons every day with my 3
year old son.
Cartoons are cool.. Kid games are boring. N64, with the exception of a few
games, is boring.
>Hell, I thought Freddi Fish was a cool game. Too
>simple for someone like myself to solve naturally, but it was fun to
>try it. You'd probably look at such a title with disdain. I know
>someone who got "Lego Island" as a christmas present, and they reused
>to even open the package and look at it. Sure, the game might have
>been so simplistic and kiddy that even I would be sickened by it, but
>I would have at least looked at it. That someone is obviously a lot
>like you.
Well, when you get stuck with an N64, I guess you just have to tollerate
those things.
I would have taken the unopened Lego Island back to the store.
>>I have been pretty much unhappy with the N64. PSX is great.
>
>Because you don't like games that have cartoon charcatars. You're
>"too adult" for them.
Because I like games with some action.. Nintendo is like the Disney of
consoles.
Do you buy Disney games for your PC?
Shrike
>
> And if that opinion isn't based on actual analysis, then it's not
> worth crap.
Here is my analysis. Zelda bores the living shite out of me. I have
more fun playing Quake and TRIBES with my friends.
The Next Generation editors can go rub themselves against a cactus for
all I care. They make money out of spewing crap for the ignorant, and
more power to them, for the army of the ignorant is ever growing, but
I don't need anybody to tell me which games I have fun playing and
which I don't.
--
Shrike -IRIX worshipper, Linux dabbler, Windows victim-
`I need Stalin like I need a hole in the head' -Leon Trotsky
Simon Juncal
> Also, the weapons in Doom looked cooler. I'd much rather have a
> plasma gun than a stupid ass looking lightning gun or chain gun.
> Those weapon designs in Quake 1 were fucked up. And the ones in Quake
> 2... what the hell? It's not enough that the environment is all
> brown... they have to make the WEAPONS all brown too?
... The blaster isn't brown, Hand Grenades are green, The sub machine
gun is gun metal gray, the chain gun is stainless steel colored, the
GL is black and red with a brass shelled grenade round in the breech,
the RL is predominantly green, the Hyper Blaster is yellow, the Rail
gun has some brown, but is mostly orange, and the BFG is blue and
black. Your perception of the Q2 weapons would seem to be about as
good as your perception of the plot of Blade Runner... Which is to
say atrocious.
So we know you're color blind, hate all game companies who've
released a bad game; and can't follow a moderately complex sci-fi
plot--And believe that Zelda64 is the pinnacle of all electronic
(one assumes) gaming history. Additionally you think that art/
entertainment an inherently subjective medium can be likened to
black and white vs color TV for comparison purposes.
Do I have that about right?
--
______________________________________________
) Simon co List Admin Capi...@his.com )
( Aka Alhazred (
) http://capitals.washington.dc.us/ )
( http://members.tripod.com/~sjuncal/shooter/ (
)_____________________________________________)
Help fight spam check out http://www.cauce.org
Rygar1
>I could never rate Starcraft as number one... The game is cool, and
>the graphics are nice, (but not "holy shit!" incredible)
Personally I prefer the traditional look as opposed to 3D polys with
lens flare.
>but the music is boring,
"unobtrusive" :o) It sets the mood, most people are usually too busy
to notice really :)
> the sounds are only average, and the gameplay is poorly
>balanced. Ever tried to win multiplayer with the terrans?
I do, constantly. The races are incredibly well balanced. There is
no "weaker" race, there is only people that can't use them properly
and blame "game balance". I play on "Random" - which means the
computer randomly picks my race at the start of the game (on
battle.net) - there is no need to choose if you can use all races
equally well.
>I'd actually rate Warcraft II over Starcraft.
The gameplay was more simplistic. Starcraft has *way* more strategy.
> It was very well balanced,
No kidding, the units were nearly mirror images :o)
>Zelda is one of those games everyone was waiting for. Just like
>they're waiting for a new Mario game. It's popularity has notihng to
>do with the lack of N64 games out there. There were hundreds of games
>on the NES, and Zelda sold great on that system too.
I agree, I was tempted to buy an N64 *just* for Zelda :)
Gunslingr3
that you get your money in hand in exchange for the damaged product.<<
All the online buyers I've explored have return policies. This is like the
video card, if you're plinking down $1,500, spend a few minutes on research.
>>And I happen to like choosing what my computer case looks like,<<
You don't care about the difference in visuals between Doom and Quake 2,
but you care about how your case looks?
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
I hope it looks several hundred dollars better than mine....
>> and finding a CDROM that has a good automatic tray closer as opposed to a
cheap plastic one that just slides in and out. Can't easily check that stuff
via mail order. Takes too long to return if it's a cheap peice of crap that
doesn't work with your system.<<
If you don't like the CD tray, take the several hundred dollars saved and
buy a DVD.
Gunslinger
Gunslingr3
Doom was a great game, even with that limitation. Who cares if there is a guy
in a tunnel below you, if you can't see him? And with environments as
unrealisitc as those in the Quake series, does it really matter if there's the
additional "unrealisticness" of no floors over floors?<<
>sigh< Have you seen the CTF maps? Ever used the grapple? The 3D enviroment
is immeasurably better than the Doom enviroment.
The severe design constraints in a 2 1/2D world I guess aren't really
appreciated until you've seen a well designed level. Examine the first three
CTF maps some day.
>>Would Quake 1 have been a worse game (than it was) if there were no floors
over floors? Hell no.<<
Would it have been any better than Doom? No.
Again, look at the CTF maps, or spectate a CTF game some day, and see what
advantages are gained in a 3D enviroment.
Gunslinger
Gunslingr3
not yours.<<
You listen to Siskel and Ebert to decide what movie to watch?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
This is funnier than the trials and tribulations of your "computer savvy"
friend.
>>The rules I listed above are pretty straightforward. They're like saying
"This TV has more features" and "This TV has a clearer picture". Do you really
think someone who says their 10" b/w TV is the best TV ever because they're a
huge fan of Zenith is worth listening to?<<
Rules? There are rules to what game I can like best? Do you realize how
stupid you sound?
It is an OPINION. Fags like taking it in the ass, they probably consider
this the "Best Sex Ever", but I disagree.
I don't care what criteria you use to formulate your opinions, they have no
bearing on mine.
>>Any title of "best game ever" has to have some rules associated with it,
otherwise, a team of people could never decide on which game deserves that
honors.<<
There you go again with "rules" for formulating an opinion. I don't NEED a
"team" of assholes to tell me what is the "best game". Did you formulate your
opinion, or was it assigned by the "team".
>>If a game doesn't do the above, then nobody with an open critical mind would
even consider the title as a best game ever.<<
Determining the "Best Game" isn't science or math, it is a matter of
opinion.
>>Quake 2 has never been awarded the title of best game ever by any reputable
source, ie, a panel of reputable game critics.<<
Oh Great Panel, convey upon the unwashed masses which game is best. We
await your enlightened judgement...
>>If you're playing a game that's a contender for best game ever, you shouldn't
even be considering playing your own music. A game is supposed to stand on
it's OWN merit, not on the merit of your Nine Inch Nails cd.<<
Why? Because that is your opinion?
>>So it must be infinitely good because it can be modified to be better. Hm,
guess if someone doesn't like the Mona Lisa, you could always paint over it.
Guess it must be the best painting ever.<<
Would Zelda be better if users could create and share levels? Do you think
that wouldn't lengthen the lifespan, and therefore value of the game?
>>So? You're talking about cool things the players did, not cool things the
designers did.<<
The game makes it possible, hence it is a part of the game, and my
appreciation of it suffers not at all.
>>And I'm sure none of those cool things keeps you in awe for more than a
moment. I spent several minutes revelling in the awe of Hyrule Field the first
time I went out onto it, and anyone who's played the game would probably agree
with me there.<<
Let us imagine I am only in awe for a moment, how many moments can this
game provide? Unlimited!
How cool is Hyrule Field the 3rd time you walk into it? The 300th? With
CTF every game provides the same opportunity for interest.
>>Mind explaining WHY you think those aren't good criteria to judge a game by?
If you don't use a set of rules to judge such things by, then they're just hot
air.<<
Got news for you, your opinion on what is the best game is STILL just "hot
air", regardless of your criteria.
>>Even Carmack said in his
>>interview that they don't expect 90% of players to even bother
>>completing the single player levels.
>
>BECAUSE IT IS A MULTIPLAYER GAME. If you get your thrills out of beating a
>computer, go for it. I prefer to outwit and outshoot humans.
I was, and he was, talking about single player games. Ie, Quake 2.
Not Quake 3. <<
Carmack knows that his core audience is interested in multiplayer, not
single player. He's devoted id to making a better game for them to play.
>>The only reason to expect that a player wouldn't finish the levels is if the
game is POORLY DESIGNED.<<
Or, in the person in question's opinion, single player isn't nearly as fun
as mutliplayer. I didn't get Q2 for single player. Not because I didn't think
(or care if) it would be good, but because multiplayer is more interesting and
challenging to me.
>>Do you think Shigeru Miamoto (the genius Nintendo game designer) goes around
saying "well, people are tired of Mario 64 by the end... I guess we can't do
anything about that, it's just a fact of life."<<
He HAS to make it better, because that's all there is to his games. If a
person doesn't like the levels, that's it. Put it on the shelf. If I don't
like the levels or monsters in Q2 I knew I could play against people. I could
find levels on the web, etc.
>>Players not finishing a game is a symptom that the game needs some redesign,
not a fact of life.<<
Players preferring to spend their time playing Quake playing multiplayer is not
a slight to single player. There are only 24 hours in a day. If I am going to
play Quake I intend to get maximum fun out them. That's in multiplayer for
_me_.
>>Anyone who says otherwise is either retarded, or lying.<<
That's an opinion, and nothing more.
Gunslinger
ROYCE SHIH-WEA LIAO
: >>That is just pure stupidity. If he was even remotely computer saavy, he
: >>would have known there are no recent 3D accelerators with only 2MB RAM.
: >>Hell, 2MB video cards went out of style 3 years ago.
: >
: >There are so many 3d card names out there, it's hard to tell what's
: >got what hardware. I'm pretty sure the system specs didn't specify
: >exactly how much ram the card had.
every once in a while in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video, I see posts from
users asking why their SiS6326/VirgeDX/Trident-3D doesn't function
properly in Direct3D. My first inclination is to laugh, but I hen realize
that these folks managed to find comp.sys...video, managed to write an
*intelligent* post (not just "my k0mpuUter broke, mAN, fiX it 4 me
dUdE!!1!!1"
by the way, if you feel obligagated to buy into crappy 3D hardware, let me
rank them for you...
The best (slowest)
Paradise Tasmania 3D (2MB, passthrough card like the Voodoo Graphics)
ATI Rage3D (2MB EDO)
S3 Virge (2MB EDO)
S3 Virge/DX/GX
Matrox Mystique 170/220
Trident 985AGP
S3 Virge/GX2, Trio3D
Cirrus GD-5465AGP (4MB RAMBUS)
SiS6326
: You said he was computer saavy.. Guess not.
there are different kinds of "computer savvy." Some people are compulsive
upgraders/techies, and research every piece of PC tech on the market every
3 months or more. Then there are those people who aren't into the
technical side, but more the applications/usage side. They might not know
the latest developments in PC tech, but you can ask them what kind of
system you'd need for a database or something, and how long it would take
to set-up, what kind of problems to expect, etc.(i.e. relatively hardware
independent.) The best is someone who knows both, but most people stick
with one side or the other.
: There are only a couple 3D chipsets out there anyway.
: 3dfx Voodoo2 and Nvidia TNT are the best. 3dfx Banshee and S3 Savage3D are
: next.
Personally, I think the Savage3D should be ahead of the Banshee...if it
were not for the Savage3D's weak drivers. On the other hand, Banshee has
Glide, which still counts in today's gaming market.
: All others are pretty much junk. His computer probably has a piece of crap
: ATi Rage Pro.
Even the Rage Pro comes with min 4MB RAM. Could have been a Rage LT/PRO
or other stripped down AGP chip, that might come with 2MB.
: All of the above chipsets have new versions coming out within the next
: couple months so they will still be the best to choose from. Except now it
: will be easier cause there will be fewer.
: Voodoo2 and Banshee are being replaced by Voodoo3. TNT is being replaced by
: TNT2.
: Savage4 is not as good as the others, so toss it out.. ATi comes into the
: picture with the new Rage.
The Savage4 looks like a decent low-end/budget-gamers card. Don't toss it
out because this time S3 might get it right. Technologically, the
Savage3d was a tremendous comebnack for S3, even though the chip failed
miserably in the marketplace. NVidia made the chip in the Diamond Edge3D,
remember that mockery-of-3D-acceleration?
: There you have it. Voodoo3, TNT2 or ATi Rage
Fury.
Nigel McNaughton
>>>> They're using true 3D for level design. Don't you remember the 2 1/2D
>of
>>Doom? Don't you remember that you couldn't have a bridge that you could go
>>under?
>
>So?
>
>Was Doom a worse game because of it? Hardly.<<
>
> Can you comprehend the architechtural constraints of 2 1/2D?
> You can NOT have one floor above another.
>
>>>Actually, I'd perfer playing Doom any day over Quake 1. It's more visually
>appealing,<<
>
> Omigod, I've been trying to explain the benefits of eye candy to Mr. Magoo.
>
>>> and it has more interesting and better balanced weapons.<<
>
> This is your opinion, but what does it have to do with 3D?
>
>Gunslinger
>
But you snipped out everything he said about 3D, whats the deal with
that?
Grue
>gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>
>>I don't see what's so funny. What game do YOU think deserves the
>>title of best game of all time? The only other game I think could be
>>worthy of that title would be Metal Gear Solid.
>
>coffee all over my keyboard!
>
>>Zelda does this. You won't find a 3D action RPG out there that has
>>better control,
>
>Heretic 2 has a thousand times better control. That's the game that
>proved you can't beat the mouse, even in third-person.
What were you saying about spitting coffee all over?
That game was GOD AWFUL. The mouse control sucked. It was a pain in
the ass to jump up on ledges... I remember getting really frusted in
the demo level of the game just trying to jump up on some rocks to get
to the top of a cliff.
The art was just plain dull. It has that same bland look that Hexen
II has. Everyhting is only 50% bright or less. Good art requires
CONTRAST! The bright areas should be bright, the dark areas dark.
Unfortuantely, people make their textures to damn dark, and the Quake
2 engine is incapable o brightening surfaces up like the Blood II
engine can, so it looks like crap.
Also, the main charactar is very poorly animated. All his motions are
really stiff.
And the controls during battle suck too. When those damn insects or
rats or whatever get around your feet, you can't even hit them. And
you can't really tell where the hell you're aiming with the third
person view.
On top of that, it had dull sounds, a crappy plot, and I never went
"wow that's really cool looking!" when I looked at the environments.
Now don't think I didn't give this game a chance. I thought the game
looked GREAt in the screenshots. But I guess I was just wowed by the
few good looking areas they took shots of, the idea that there was
finally gonna be a decent 3rd person action game on the PC, and the
particle effects.
If that game was so good, why doesn't anyone talk about it in here?
There's no end to the discussion of Zelda in the Nintendo newsgroup.
>>Metal Gear Solid does this.
>
>It had the potential to be great, but instead of really pushing the
>innovative (i.e., sneaking) style of gameplay they wussed out and fell
>back on the tired old boss-after-boss-after-boss cliche.
Exacuse me, but that is what the original Metal Gear used, and it
worked very well. The bosses were all interesting charactars, and
they were challenging. You had to figure out how to beat the boss,
not pump thousands of round of ammuntion into him.
And why would you want the WHOLE game to involve sneaking? That's
just as bad as the whole game involving action. MGS was a good mix of
both. Sneaking near the beginning, and lots of battling towards the
climax.
>Oh yeah, I
>forgot - you love cliches and hate innovative things like the movie
>BladeRunner.
You just loooove to make sweeping generalizations, don't you? Jus
tbecause I don't like ONE movie, I must not like ANY innovative
movies. Why don't you name some OTHER innovative movies? I've seen a
LOT of movies.
Grue
>Grue wrote:
>>
>
>> And if that opinion isn't based on actual analysis, then it's not
>> worth crap.
>
>Here is my analysis. Zelda bores the living shite out of me. I have
>more fun playing Quake and TRIBES with my friends.
That's not an analysis. That's an opinion. WHY does it bore you?
And how do you find the graphics, and the sound as compared to other
games? What about the controls?
You have to back up your opinion for me to respect it. Game reviewers
don't just say a game sucks. They say WHY it sucks.
I could tell you a bunch of things that Zelda did wrong. But those
things don't outwieigh all the things it did right. Hell, you
probably didn't even get to any of the bad stuff because you didn't
play it enough I'm betting.
Did you even make it through the Deku Tree, and out onto Hyrule Field,
or did you just give up when you couldn't find the sword?
>The Next Generation editors can go rub themselves against a cactus for
>all I care. They make money out of spewing crap for the ignorant, and
>more power to them, for the army of the ignorant is ever growing, but
>I don't need anybody to tell me which games I have fun playing and
>which I don't.
Their magazine has far better thought out reviews and design than
magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Computer Gaming World.
I mean, did you even look at NextGen's top 100 games of all time list?
Compare that to PC Gamer's top 50 games of all time. The PC gamer one
is utter unbeleiveable crap. Whoever wrote it is a total imbecile.
everyone at the company I work at agrees with me on that.
Grue
>>>That's why people listen to Siskel and Ebert's opinions of movies, and
>not yours.<<
>
> You listen to Siskel and Ebert to decide what movie to watch?
>BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Did I say I did? No. Actually, I've only seen their show about
three times. I said PEOPLE wlisten to them. Not me. I don't have
the same tastes in movies as they do/did.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know what they're gonna do with the show
now that Gene Siskel died? Rename it? Bring on some other reviewer?
Cancel it completely?
> Rules? There are rules to what game I can like best?
No, there are rules to awarding a particular game the title of "best
game ever". Ant reputable person would give such a thing a lot of
thought, not just base it on what game is their current favorite.
Next Gen's list had _tetris_ up at #2! And they had games like Joust
and Missle Command on the list too.
I'm sure if you made up a list of the top 100 games of all time, it
would only contain recent hit titles. Because you just go for what's
curently hot. Well I don't base my opinions on what's currenty the
hip thing... My sister liked that stupid band "The new Kids on the
Block" when t hey came out. I was sick of listening to it all the
time, and told her that just like all the other bands that came and
swent in a few years time, she'd hate the band, and wouldn't be
lovesick over them. Well, I was right. She's like you. Me on the
other hand... I still like Nine Inch Nails even though many people
consider it passe'. Because my likes and dislikes don't change the
minute something new comes along. I still like the original Mario
games even though the new ones came out. But like a five year old,
you probably don't like the original Quake now that Quake 2 is out.
> It is an OPINION. Fags like taking it in the ass, they probably consider
>this the "Best Sex Ever", but I disagree.
So I take it you've tried it...
> I don't care what criteria you use to formulate your opinions, they have no
>bearing on mine.
If you don't forumulate your opinions on anything, how could you ever
look back and ask yourself whether Quake 1, or Quake 2 was a better
game? You probabvly proclaimed them both the best shooter ever when
they came out. And will proclaim Quake 3 as such when it comes out.
> There you go again with "rules" for formulating an opinion. I don't NEED a
>"team" of assholes to tell me what is the "best game". Did you formulate your
>opinion, or was it assigned by the "team".
I wouldn't say Zelda was the best game ever if I didn't look at other
people's opinions on it, and compare the game against other games.
But I sitll make up my own mind. Actually, I don't know whether I'd
say Zelda was the best game, or Metal Gear Solid was. It's kind of a
toss up for me. When I said Zelda was the best game ever, I was
talking about the title Nextgen gave it. They're more informaed than
I am, and better at making such a decision.
> Determining the "Best Game" isn't science or math, it is a matter of
>opinion.
No, it's not, it's a combinatiion of both. You use your opinion to
decide where the game ranks on visuals, sound, originality,
innovation... and then you use those values to determine where the
game sits on the chart. And if more than one game holds the same
position, you debate over whther one game's sound or visuals are
slightly better than another game's. You might also weight the
difrent areas diffrently. You'd probably want to put great importance
on gameplay, and not sound, because you wouldn't want to give Tetris
on gameboy a lower score than Clay Fighter 33/3rd on N64 because it
had worse sound.
> Why? Because that is your opinion?
No, because you're not judging the game anymore! I the game has
shitty music, shouldn't that be an important consideration in whether
the game is good or not?
Lets say I have a five year old redo all the media for Quake. Is
Quake now a shitty game? No. Quake is a good game. You jusdge the
game by what's in the box. If you don't, then you're not really
judging the developer's work, now are you?
> Would Zelda be better if users could create and share levels? Do you think
>that wouldn't lengthen the lifespan, and therefore value of the game?
No, it wouldn't. That wouldn't be "the game", which is what shipped
in the box.
Besides that, no user could ever hope to create content for Zelda that
comes close to equalling the original's content. Just like almost
every single user created Quake level out there has something
hideously wrong with it. Bad lighting, bad weapon placement, textures
that aren't aligned, poor framerate, ugly texture selection, etc etc
etc...
I guess if MOST of the levels available for quake suck, then the game
must suck, because you want to judge it on what doesn't come in the
box, right?
Or are you only counting the GOOD addons for the game... ?
Let's ignore all the crappy aspects of the game, and only emphasize
the good ones. Then we can be just like Ion Storm.
> Let us imagine I am only in awe for a moment, how many moments can this
>game provide? Unlimited!
> How cool is Hyrule Field the 3rd time you walk into it? The 300th? With
>CTF every game provides the same opportunity for interest.
Yeah, and I can have unlimited "really cool battles" in Zelda too.
Guess it must be infinitely good.
> Carmack knows that his core audience is interested in multiplayer, not
>single player. He's devoted id to making a better game for them to play.
No, he is devoted to making games HE wants to play. He doesn't give a
shit what the players want. Players want fun names too, but he said
uck them and took them out. (Not that I think that was a bad move...)
> He HAS to make it better, because that's all there is to his games. If a
>person doesn't like the levels, that's it. Put it on the shelf. If I don't
>like the levels or monsters in Q2 I knew I could play against people. I could
>find levels on the web, etc.
Id sold me a SINGLE PLAYER game. They didn't sell me a multiplayer
game. Their game had NO way for me to connect to any servers without
downloading third party stuff or searching the web to find server
lists. I couldn't even play multiplayer against a freind over the
modem with what they gave me in the box.
>>>Players not finishing a game is a symptom that the game needs some redesign,
>not a fact of life.<<
>
>Players preferring to spend their time playing Quake playing multiplayer is not
>a slight to single player.
I'm not TALKING about that... I'm talking about people not finishing
single player because it sucks, not because they prefer to play
multiplayer. I certainly wanted a single player game, and I didn't
fnish the damn game.
Gunslingr3
>more fun playing Quake and TRIBES with my friends.
That's not an analysis. That's an opinion. WHY does it bore you? And how do
you find the graphics, and the sound as compared to other games? What about
the controls?<<
It's all OPINION! Dear GOD, why can't you see that? When you say, "I
think the art was bad" that is OPINION! The reasons "WHY" it bores him is
simply more OPINION. _His_ opinion, and nothing more.
>>You have to back up your opinion for me to respect it.<<
I'm going out on a limb here, but I doubt he gives a shit whether or not
you "respect" his opinion. Whether or not you confer your respect to his
opinion is not going to alter its value to him.
>>I mean, did you even look at NextGen's top 100 games of all time list?
Compare that to PC Gamer's top 50 games of all time. The PC gamer one is utter
unbeleiveable crap. Whoever wrote it is a total imbecile. everyone at the
company I work at agrees with me on that.<<
"everyone at the company... agrees with me"
Ahhh, the safety of the herd...
Perhaps individualism and the relative value of opinion _is_ beyond your
comprehension.
Gunslinger
Gunslingr3
>BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Did I say I did? No. Actually, I've only seen their show about
three times. I said PEOPLE wlisten to them. Not me. I don't have
the same tastes in movies as they do/did.<<
You said "people" listen to them. Who the fuck is "people"? Ever meet
him? Individuals make their own choices. If you are so fucking vapid as to
need a bald guy and his fat sidekick to tell you whats best, I don't CARE what
your opinion is.
>>No, there are rules to awarding a particular game the title of "best game
ever". Ant reputable person would give such a thing a lot of thought, not just
base it on what game is their current favorite. Next Gen's list had _tetris_
up at #2! And they had games like Joust and Missle Command on the list too.<<
read this _real_ slow: The idea "best game ever" can only be applied
individually, by individuals. What I consider best game ever won't mean
fuck-all to you if your tastes are different than mine.
>>I'm sure if you made up a list of the top 100 games of all time, it would
only contain recent hit titles. Because you just go for what's
curently hot.<<
Wow, thanks for attributing opinions to me I never expressed. What gave
you such divine insight into my thoughts?
I played Wasteland again a few months ago. Remember that game?
But guess what, I'm _not_ going to go back and replay the original F-15
from Microprose, because graphics and gameplay have moved on. My time can be
better spent.
>>Well, I was right. She's like you. Me on the other hand...<<
Hey, guess what. I don't CARE what you like.
>>But like a five year old, you probably don't like the original Quake now that
Quake 2 is out.<<
Like a five year old? LOL hard!
It's not a matter of "like", it's a matter of quality of time spent.
Why play Q1 when I have so many CTF games in Q2 with the improved graphics
and maps I enjoy.
When Nascar 2 came out and improved upon the grpahics and gameplay of
Nascar 1 I didn't keep playing Nascar 1. Not because I didn't like the game,
but because there were better products out there vying for my limited time.
>>> It is an OPINION. Fags like taking it in the ass, they probably consider
>this the "Best Sex Ever", but I disagree.
So I take it you've tried it...<<
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
It's _so_ funny the way you turned that around. But the best part was how you
missed the whole point. That one guys opinion has NO bearing on mine.
> I don't care what criteria you use to formulate your opinions, they have
no
>bearing on mine.
If you don't forumulate your opinions on anything,<<
You missed the point again. I don't care what criteria YOU use to
formulate YOUR opinions, they have no bearing on mine.
>> how could you ever look back and ask yourself whether Quake 1, or Quake 2
was a better game? You probabvly proclaimed them both the best shooter ever
when they came out. And will proclaim Quake 3 as such when it comes out. <<
Since Q2 wasn't out when Q1 was, why could someone not be of the opinion
that Q1 was the best when it came out?
And why could they not alter their opinion when the scope of games changed
to include Q2 or Q3?
>>I wouldn't say Zelda was the best game ever if I didn't look at other
people's opinions on it, and compare the game against other games. <<
Why do you need the opinions of others to decide what you think is best?
Haven't quite shaken the herd instinct, eh?
> Determining the "Best Game" isn't science or math, it is a matter of
>opinion.
No, it's not, it's a combinatiion of both. You use your opinion to decide
where the game ranks on visuals, sound, originality, innovation... and then you
use those values to determine where the game sits on the chart.<<
LOL! Magical Made up Value Number 1 plus Magical Made up Value Number 2
plus...
Opinions like "best ever" are subjective by nature. Trying to make it
"scientific" is laughable at best.
>>No, because you're not judging the game anymore! I the game has shitty
music, shouldn't that be an important consideration in whether the game is good
or not?<<
Someone is out there buying John Tesh music. I think it's miserable, but
someone is of a different opinion.
>>> Would Zelda be better if users could create and share levels? Do you
think
>that wouldn't lengthen the lifespan, and therefore value of the game?
No, it wouldn't. That wouldn't be "the game", which is what shipped in the
box.<<
id shipped more than "the game", they shipped a whole sandbox. I can make
castles, forts, or whatever I want with it. That's an inherent part of why I
consider it so great.
>>Besides that, no user could ever hope to create content for Zelda that comes
close to equalling the original's content.<<
That is your opinion. Nothing more.
>> Just like almost every single user created Quake level out there has
something hideously wrong with it. Bad lighting, bad weapon placement,
textures that aren't aligned, poor framerate, ugly texture selection, etc etc
etc... <<
More of your opinion. I happen to think the first four levels of CTF are
some of the best maps ever made. That's my opinion.
>>I guess if MOST of the levels available for quake suck, then the game must
suck, because you want to judge it on what doesn't come in the box, right?<<
It would suck if you stuck with playing lame levels. I don't. I play the
levels I enjoy.
>>Let's ignore all the crappy aspects of the game, and only emphasize the good
ones. Then we can be just like Ion Storm.<<
If I'm not utilizing parts of the game I consider "crappy", how am I
adversely affected?
The driver AI in Nascar 2 wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but I
didn't care. I bought that game to race online in leagues against other
humans.
Are you beginning to see why your opinion is so insignificant to me? Your
likes and dislikes are almost certainly different. I don't need your opinion
to form my own based on my likes and dislikes.
>>Yeah, and I can have unlimited "really cool battles" in Zelda too. Guess it
must be infinitely good.<<
For you it might be. Everyone has different tastes, that is why your
attempts to assign the title "best game" are so amusing.
>>Id sold me a SINGLE PLAYER game. They didn't sell me a multiplayer game.<<
They sold you both. If you had no use for multiplayer, that is not id's
fault.
>>Their game had NO way for me to connect to any servers without downloading
third party stuff<<
You didn't need any "third party stuff" to play multiplayer. If you did
someone forgot to tell me, because I didn't have it when I started playing
mutliplayer.
>> or searching the web to find server lists. I couldn't even play multiplayer
against a freind over the modem with what they gave me in the box.<<
That modems would not be supported was made clear months before the game
came out. I remember the controversy over the decision.
>>>Players preferring to spend their time playing Quake playing multiplayer is
not
>a slight to single player.
I'm not TALKING about that...<<
Carmack was. Would you like to use his statements in context, or not?
>>I'm talking about people not finishing single player because it sucks, not
because they prefer to play multiplayer. I certainly wanted a single player
game, and I didn't fnish the damn game.<<
Bummer for you.
Gunslinger
Shrike
>
> I mean, did you even look at NextGen's top 100 games of all time list?
Yes, they left out Speedball 2. Fuck them.
Joe
>That game was GOD AWFUL. The mouse control sucked. It was a pain in
>the ass to jump up on ledges...
You must be demented. Most people really liked H2 (almost all reviews
and posts were positive) and the best thing about it was the user
interface. FINALLY a third-person game that wasn't ackward to use!
>... and the Quake
>2 engine is incapable o brightening surfaces up like the Blood II
>engine can, so it looks like crap.
Man, with all the crap you're spouting I hope there's a good recycling
center nearby or you're an environmental hazard! I guess you never
heard of Sin, or Half-life.
>If that game was so good, why doesn't anyone talk about it in here?
It's months old, and was primarily a single player game. When it was
released it had rave reviews here.
>There's no end to the discussion of Zelda in the Nintendo newsgroup.
Well, there's always new kids growing up who enjoy even old kiddie
games.
>You just loooove to make sweeping generalizations, don't you?
Only when they're true. ;-)
>Just
>tbecause I don't like ONE movie, I must not like ANY innovative
>movies.
Actually what is shocking was that you couldn't follow the plot of a
moderately complex sf movie.
>Why don't you name some OTHER innovative movies?
Finally saw "A Touch of Evil" last night. Awesome flick, they don't
make 'em like that anymore. I know, how about 2001, did you understand
that?
Joe
Heretic
>
>mcg...@direct.ca (Joe) wrote:
>>gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>>
>>>I don't see what's so funny. What game do YOU think deserves the
>>>title of best game of all time? The only other game I think could be
>>>worthy of that title would be Metal Gear Solid.
>>
>>PTHHTTH! Jesus, don't say such funny stuff in the morning, you'll get
>>coffee all over my keyboard!
>>
>>>Zelda does this. You won't find a 3D action RPG out there that has
>>>better control,
>>
>>Heretic 2 has a thousand times better control. That's the game that
>>proved you can't beat the mouse, even in third-person.
>
>What were you saying about spitting coffee all over?
>
>the demo level of the game just trying to jump up on some rocks to get
>to the top of a cliff.
>
>The art was just plain dull. It has that same bland look that Hexen
>II has. Everyhting is only 50% bright or less. Good art requires
>CONTRAST! The bright areas should be bright, the dark areas dark.
>2 engine is incapable o brightening surfaces up like the Blood II
>engine can, so it looks like crap.
>
>really stiff.
>
>And the controls during battle suck too. When those damn insects or
>rats or whatever get around your feet, you can't even hit them. And
>you can't really tell where the hell you're aiming with the third
>person view.
>
>On top of that, it had dull sounds, a crappy plot, and I never went
>"wow that's really cool looking!" when I looked at the environments.
>
>Now don't think I didn't give this game a chance. I thought the game
>looked GREAt in the screenshots. But I guess I was just wowed by the
>few good looking areas they took shots of, the idea that there was
>finally gonna be a decent 3rd person action game on the PC, and the
>particle effects.
>
>
May D'Sparil save you, troll.
Freon
NextGen is good for news.. mostly console news.
I dont give a rats ass about their top 100.
--
Freon
m | b at mocc com
Shrike <sco...@alcaudon.com> wrote in message
news:36DD88CC...@alcaudon.com...
Freon
>"Freon" <S...@signature.com> wrote:
>>Did I say I didnt like Zelda? It is a good game. It's obviously not as
>>great to me as it is to you.
>>24? Sorry.. got you by 3 years and I watch cartoons every day with my 3
>>year old son.
>
>something...
Hmm.. Wonder where the part that said "Cartoons are cool" went? Oh thats
right, you cut it out because you are a moron. I will say it again to
refresh your memory;
Cartoons are cool. Kiddy games are not.
I dont watch cartoons without my son because I have more important stuff to
watch.. News, financial reports, weather, etc etc..
>>I would have taken the unopened Lego Island back to the store.
>
>Won't even give it a chance... No wonder you didn't like Zelda.
>Befoe you even started playing it, you probably told yourself you were
>gonna hate it.
Hello.. Is anybody home? Did I say I didnt like Zelda?
Noooooooooo..... As it says above, I thought Zelda was a pretty good game.
It was not the best game ever.
Thats right, I wouldnt even give Lego Island a chance.. Why would I? If I
wanted the game, I would have bought it.. Hmmm...
Before you even started this thread, you probably told yourself you were
going to be a complete idiot.
>As far as "kiddy" games go, Zelda is the cream of the crop. If you
>don't like Zelda, it's not surprising that you don't like any other
>kiddy games.
Do you understand anything that has been discussed in this thread?
Zelda is a decent game.. It is not the cream of the crop.
The majority of N64 games are junk games for kids.
Judging by your responses so far, it is not surprising that you dont
understand.
>>Because I like games with some action.. Nintendo is like the Disney of
>>consoles.
>>Do you buy Disney games for your PC?
>
>Well I would if they had any ones that weren't coloring books that
>were good...
>
>I bought Alladin for the Genesis. That was a great platformer. The
>Lion King platformer was decent too.
Hey, if you like kid games, thats your thing.
Freon
>gunsl...@aol.com (Gunslingr3) wrote:
>> read this _real_ slow: The idea "best game ever" can only be applied
>>individually, by individuals. What I consider best game ever won't mean
>>fuck-all to you if your tastes are different than mine.
>
How does that apply? The Grammys and Emmys are no different than what he
said above.
The awards are based on one groups opinions. There are plenty of movies and
actors winning awards at those shows that I dont care for at all.. Just
because one person or group thinks something is "the best" doesnt mean it
is. Zelda was not the best game on quite a few lists. But since it was on
Next-Gen's list, it must be the best huh?
Rygar1
>gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>
>>That game was GOD AWFUL. The mouse control sucked. It was a pain in
>>the ass to jump up on ledges...
On Wed, 03 Mar 1999 19:44:41 GMT, mcg...@direct.ca (Joe) wrote:
>You must be demented. Most people really liked H2 (almost all reviews
>and posts were positive) and the best thing about it was the user
>interface. FINALLY a third-person game that wasn't ackward to use!
For them. I hated the control. Am I demented too now because I
disagree with the majority? I sure wouldn't want to go against the
"mass mind", there might be men wearing black suits and sunglasses
waiting for me outside after I send this.
<send>
DOH! Stupid fingers not listening again
Grue
>In article <36e2621f....@news.earthlink.net>, gr...@zork.net says...
>>
>>gunsl...@aol.com (Gunslingr3) wrote:
>>>
>>> Can you comprehend the architechtural constraints of 2 1/2D?
>>> You can NOT have one floor above another.
>>
>>
>>Doom was a great game, even with that limitation. Who cares if there
>>is a guy in a tunnel below you, if you can't see him? And with
>>environments as unrealisitc as those in the Quake series, does it
>>over floors?
>>
>
>I agree with you. And I think even the 2.5D structure of DOOM
>is a waste of computing power! We should stick with the 1D
>structure of Wolf3D instead.
Ha ha.
My answer to that is that Wolf's engine wasn't complex enough to
provide a decent deathmatch experience. :)
Doom's obivously was.
Hell, if Doom had servers on the net like Quake, I'd go on the net
right now and play some! I haven't played Doom deathmatch in years.
Grue
>Did I say I didnt like Zelda? It is a good game. It's obviously not as
>great to me as it is to you.
>24? Sorry.. got you by 3 years and I watch cartoons every day with my 3
>year old son.
Qualifying it by saying you watch them with your son... sure sign of
something...
>I would have taken the unopened Lego Island back to the store.
Won't even give it a chance... No wonder you didn't like Zelda.
Befoe you even started playing it, you probably told yourself you were
gonna hate it.
As far as "kiddy" games go, Zelda is the cream of the crop. If you
don't like Zelda, it's not surprising that you don't like any other
kiddy games.
>Because I like games with some action.. Nintendo is like the Disney of
Grue
>Grue wrote:
>> Also, the weapons in Doom looked cooler. I'd much rather have a
>> plasma gun than a stupid ass looking lightning gun or chain gun.
>> Those weapon designs in Quake 1 were fucked up. And the ones in Quake
>> 2... what the hell? It's not enough that the environment is all
>> brown... they have to make the WEAPONS all brown too?
>
>... The blaster isn't brown, Hand Grenades are green,
The blaster is off white... not much of a difrence.
And the hand grenades are most certainly NOT green. They are tan.
>The sub machine
>gun is gun metal gray,
Okay, so so far we have shades of grey, and browns/tans for weapon
colors...
>the chain gun is stainless steel colored,
<sarcasm>
What color would that be?
>the GL is black and red with a brass shelled grenade round in the breech,
Okay, we got some red now. Not enough of THAT in the environement
already...
>the RL is predominantly green,
TAN!
What are you, running in software mode, or are you color blind?
>the Hyper Blaster is yellow,
No, it's rusty brown.
>the Rail gun has some brown, but is mostly orange,
Mostly RED.
>and the BFG is blue and black.
Actually, it's dark grey and blue.
>Your perception of the Q2 weapons would seem to be about as
>good as your perception of the plot of Blade Runner... Which is to
>say atrocious.
My perception is atrocious? You got half the colors wrong!
Regardless of whether they have a few colors other than brown in them,
they STILL blend in with the rest of the art too much. You're on an
alien world... why do your weapons look identical to the world?
>So we know you're color blind,
No, YOU'RE color blind. Anyone want to agree with me here that NONE
of the Quake 2 weapons are _green_ in GL mode?
Grue
>>>Yes, I CAN. And BIG FUCKING DEAL!
>
>Doom was a great game, even with that limitation. Who cares if there is a guy
>in a tunnel below you, if you can't see him? And with environments as
>unrealisitc as those in the Quake series, does it really matter if there's the
>additional "unrealisticness" of no floors over floors?<<
>
>is immeasurably better than the Doom enviroment.
> The severe design constraints in a 2 1/2D world I guess aren't really
>appreciated until you've seen a well designed level. Examine the first three
>CTF maps some day.
>
>>>Would Quake 1 have been a worse game (than it was) if there were no floors
>over floors? Hell no.<<
>
> Would it have been any better than Doom? No.
WAS it any better than Doom?
NO!
Actually, it was far worse. Sucked ass.
> Again, look at the CTF maps, or spectate a CTF game some day, and see what
>advantages are gained in a 3D enviroment.
Sorry, too much of a pain in the ass connecting to servers only to be
disconeected before the maps can finish downloading.
Grue
>On Tue, 02 Mar 1999 10:09:33 GMT, gr...@zork.net (Grue) wrote:
>
>>I could never rate Starcraft as number one... The game is cool, and
>>the graphics are nice, (but not "holy shit!" incredible)
>
>Personally I prefer the traditional look as opposed to 3D polys with
>lens flare.
Don't think I meant that in order to be holy shit incredible they have
to be 3D. I definitely didn't mean that. I thought Total Anihilation
had shitty artwork. (But was relatively fun)
>>but the music is boring,
>
>"unobtrusive" :o) It sets the mood, most people are usually too busy
>to notice really :)
I'll give you that it's unobtrustive, which is good... But it's also
boring. :)
And it's kinda a weird style of music for a space battle game. I
expected military music, not elevator music. :)
>I do, constantly. The races are incredibly well balanced. There is
>no "weaker" race, there is only people that can't use them properly
>and blame "game balance". I play on "Random" - which means the
>computer randomly picks my race at the start of the game (on
>battle.net) - there is no need to choose if you can use all races
>equally well.
Eh... I dunno. Everyone I know that plays almost always picks the
Protoss. And my own experience has born out that they are WAY more
powerful at the beginning of a battle than the other races. In no
time at all, you can build their little warriors who are really
strong, and rush a zerg or terran base.
>>I'd actually rate Warcraft II over Starcraft.
>
>The gameplay was more simplistic. Starcraft has *way* more strategy.
Perhaps. But sometimes simplistic is good. I agree that Warcraft II
might lack enough strategy... I know that I got extremely good at it
without playing it very much.
>> It was very well balanced,
>
>No kidding, the units were nearly mirror images :o)
That's true... But it was balanced. :)
>I agree, I was tempted to buy an N64 *just* for Zelda :)
I bought an N64 just for Mario 64!
I was tempted to buy a Playstation just for Metal Gear Solid. I
didn't though. Well, I did, but it was before Metal Gear came out,
and I coudln't find any good Playstation games worth owning, so I
returned it. Then when it came out, I couldn't afford a Playstation,
so I just played MGS over a freind's house.
Not sure if I regret that or not. I really would have liked to buy
that game, and finish it all myself. As it was, I watched 90% of it,
and only beat a few parts of it. But I loved it immensely. Guess I
kinda ruined it for myself.
I intend to buy the strategy guide for it though just so I'll have it
for future game development reference. And my freind gave me the
soundtrakc on CD, and I have quicktimes from the demo they showed at
E3. :)